"Preeminence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who presided over famous salons, Mme. Geoffrin had perhaps the least claim to intellectual preeminence. The secret of her power must have lain in some intangible quality that has failed to be perpetuated in any of her sayings or doings. A few commonplace and ill-spelled letters, a few wise or witty words, are all the direct record she has left of herself. ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... good opinion and good wishes, is quite sufficient for me. I feel for the difficulties of your situation, but your spirit and prudence will carry you thro them, tho not without paying the tax which the wise laws of nature have imposed upon preeminence and celebrity of every kind, a tax which, for want of true greatness of mind, neither of your predecessors, if I estimate their characters aright, ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... character, an inexhaustible fund of fresh, original thought and incident, the happiest illustrations, and a memory that never faltered in recalling what he had once read or seen, easy self-control, and ardent sympathies, all conspired to give him this preeminence. Without effort or any appearance of incongruity he could in turn be grave and gay, playful and serious. This came of the utter sincerity and genuineness of his character. There was nothing artificial about him; nature and grace had full play and, so to say, constantly ran into each other. A ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... That it will hunt the other higher races of animals and will struggle with them for preeminence (lui disputer les biens de la terre) and that it will force them to take refuge in regions ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... of such a mother was not likely to be even decently-respectable; and Anne was proud of her disgraceful preeminence and of her disgusting and royal lover. She was dark, and her flashing black eyes resembled those of a Spanish beauty. Ten years after the death of George I., she found a husband in Sir William Leman, of Northall, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests, so, on another, that the foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens and command the respect of the world. I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... the existence of degrees among the subjects of His heavenly kingdom, but articulately affirm that such variety is provided for by the preparation of the Father. Probably the two brothers thought that they were only asking for preeminence in an earthly kingdom, and had no idea that their prayer pointed beyond the grave; but that confusion of thought could not be cured in their then stage of growth, and our Lord therefore leaves it untouched. But the other error, if it were an error, was of a different kind, and might, for aught ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... then, the preeminence of the old world, that perished in the flood. It possessed apparently the best, holiest and noblest men, compared with whom we are as the dregs of the world. For the Scriptures do not say that they were wicked ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... should manage the expenses laid out upon such festivals as her husband has agreed with her in keeping, and make an outlay of clothes and other ornaments on a somewhat lesser scale than is encouraged by the laws of the state; considering that neither splendor of vestments, nor preeminence of beauty, nor the amount of gold, contributes so much to the commendation of a woman as good management in domestic affairs, and a noble and comely manner of life; since all such array of the soul is far more ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... of it. —Lie there, ye ensigns Of my unloved preeminence In an age like this! Among a people of children, Who throng'd me in their cities, Who worshipp'd me in their houses, And ask'd, not wisdom, But drugs to charm with, But spells to mutter— All the fool's-armoury of magic!—Lie there, My golden ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... Romans achieved preeminence. The temples and other public works of Greece seem almost insignificant beside the stupendous edifices raised by Roman genius in every province of the empire. The ability of the Romans to build on so large a scale arose from their use of vaulted constructions. Knowledge of the round ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... Kadmon, 757-u. Soul, origin, fall of and return to place of its origin taught by mysterious ceremonies, 385-u. Soul part of the Universal Soul whose totality is Dionusos, 586-m. Soul parted from its source lapsed from its preeminence, 685-l. Soul passes through various states till, purified, it rises to God, 567-l. Soul pervades and is within the body, 755-l. Soul plunges through seven spheres to take up its abode in the body, 506-l. Soul recollects its source and longs to return, but must ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... intense, Out of thy soul's melodious eloquence Beauty evolves its just preeminence: The lily, from some pensive-smitten chord Drawing significance Of purity, a visible hush stands: starred With splendor, from thy passionate utterance, The rose writes its romance In ...
— Poems • Madison Cawein
... labors of the annoyed and persecuted pioneers of their communion, won multitudes of converts to the Christian faith, from the neglected populations, both black and white, and gave to the Baptist churches a lasting preeminence in numbers among the ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... and descendants of conquistadors and original settlers should be preferred to those who are more recent and have not rendered greater services is a just and holy thing, especially in the peaceful countries of the Indias. But if this preeminence in life and in the favor of your Majesty is granted to them in consideration of the services which their ancestors have rendered in their conquests and pacifications, and on occasions of wars which were there carried on, it also appears just that present services ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various
... a good illustration, it seems to me, of the change in words from their literal meaning, in the passage where Christ is called the "first-born of every creature." He was not born first, before all men, but he has the "preeminence" over all creatures, as the first-born had among the children. Here is an illustration, from the New Testament, of the way in which baptism may cease to denote any mode, and refer only to an ...
— Bertha and Her Baptism • Nehemiah Adams
... that he felt strange, uneasy, uprooted from his sober aplomb. Unknown irritations possessed him. Under his breath he muttered an Arabic cynicism about woman, from the fourth chapter of the Koran: "Men shall have the preeminence above women, because Allah hath caused the one of them to ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... getting together and telling of their children's doings, in order to determine which of them satisfied the expectations the prophecy had aroused. When the true Samuel was born, and by his wonderful deed excelled all his companions, it became plain to whom the word of God applied. (17) His preeminence now being undisputed, Hannah was willing ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... kept him fully aware of the value of this preeminence, and it lay in his wisdom and pleasure to fan the flame of his own repute. In this it amused him to seek the picturesque—the unexpected. With an imagination fed by primeval humor and checked by no outward circumstances ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... there are old noble families in Athens,—like the Alcmeonide whereof Pericles sprang, and the Eumolpide who supply the priests to Demeter, the Earth Mother. But these great houses have long since ceased to claim anything but SOCIAL preeminence. Even then one must take pains not to assume airs, or the next time one is litigant before the dicastery, the insinuation of "an undemocratic, oligarchic manner of life" will win very many adverse votes among the jury. Nobility and wealth are only allowed to assert themselves in ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... Antwerp was the home of Matsys, of Rubens, Van Dyck, and the Teniers, the home also of Christopher Plantin, the great printer, her glory is not to be sought in trade alone. She is still remembered as a mother of art and letters, while her mercantile preeminence belongs ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... history, has it been so necessary to urge upon the students of the law the example of their worthiest predecessors. The tendency of the age is to lower, not to elevate, the standard set up by our ancestors for the attainment of preeminence. That our giants may not be stunted in their growth—that the legal stock may not hopelessly degenerate—Chief Justice Campbell does well to impress upon his brethren the patient and laborious course—the high and admirable qualities—by which Chief Justice ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Coriolanus, and quite distinct in Macbeth and even in Antony. Othello is the first of these men, a being essentially large and grand, towering above his fellows, holding a volume of force which in repose ensures preeminence without an effort, and in commotion reminds us rather of the fury of the elements than of the tumult ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... Emperor might afford him an opportunity of recovering some part of those territories in France which had belonged to his ancestors, and for the sake of such an acquisition he did not scruple to give his assistance toward raising Charles to a considerable preeminence above Francis. He had never dreamed, however, of any event so decisive and so fatal as the victory at Pavia, which seemed not only to have broken, but to have annihilated, the power of one of the rivals; so that the prospect of the sudden and entire ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... pure white light, Whittier made popular through his poems of Slavery and Freedom. By way of preeminence he was the poet of the abolition movement, and the Sir Galahad among our singers. Reared among the Friends, he had the simplicity of the Quaker, but the solidity and massiveness of the fighting Puritan. Strange as it may seem, he was at once the poet of peace, insisting upon the crime of ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... although there are often shocks of earthquake, sometimes several in a year, and though some have occurred quite destructive to property, there has been none to divide with that of 1692 its awful preeminence of desolation. It is true, we know not at what time such a one may come, and it has been truly said that 'this beautiful island may be regarded as a gorgeous carpet spread over the deeply charged mines of a volcano.' Hurricanes, though very much less frequent ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... whether "such despotism was founded in Scripture, in reason, in policy, or on the rights of man! A minister, by his vote, by his single voice, may negative the unanimous vote of the church! Are ministers composed of finer clay than the rest of mankind, that entitles them to this preeminence? Does a license to preach transform a man into a higher order of beings and endow him with a natural quality to govern? Are the laity an inferior order of beings, fit only to be slaves and to be governed? Is it good policy for mankind ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of excitement in all the affairs and relations of men, and America is fast becoming the central point of these activities. They are, no doubt, associated with many blessings, but they may also be attended by great evils. We claim for our country preeminence in education. This may be just, but it is also true that Americans, more than any other people, need to be better educated than they are. Where else is the field of statesmanship so large, or the necessity for ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... to explain why the cock is sacred to Minerva; and his claims to her protection are often founded on an assumed preeminence of wisdom and sagacity. This brings to our mind a story related by a gentleman, late resident in the Netherlands, of a cock in a farm-yard somewhere in Holland, near Rotterdam, whose sagacity saved him from perishing in a flood, occasioned by the bursting of one of the dykes. The water ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... calamity. Thus it attained to the fullest measure of pure, unmixed, unsophisticated wickedness; and, scorning all competition and comparison, it stood without a rival in the secure, undisputed, possession of its detestable preeminence. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... stand, while other things alone move, but moves itself; its value is changeable,—fluctuating from time to time according to the relation of supply and demand, and from place to place according to the perturbations of the trade of the world. Moreover, its very preeminence of function—the universality and the durability of its worth—renders it peculiarly sensitive to accidental influences, or to influences outside of the usual workings of trade. A great war or revolution occurring anywhere, the loss ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... a civil war on his hands with Albinus, his Caesar. Severus after getting Niger out of the way was still not giving him the rank of Caesar and had ordered other details in that quarter as he pleased; and Albinus aspired to the preeminence of emperor. [Footnote: Omitting [Greek: autou] (as Dindorf).] While the whole world was moved by this state of affairs we senators kept quiet, at least so many of us as inclining openly neither to one man nor the other yet shared their dangers ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... the world is full enough of illustrations of "the Art of making a Great Kingdom a Small One." The art of degrading the imperial idea of a true republic from its just preeminence among the polities of mankind, of quenching the principles of eternal right which are the star-points of its divine crown, of trailing the shining whiteness of its robes in the dust, and making it an object of contempt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... road to preeminent success in any line is to make yourself master in that line. I have no faith in the policy of scattering one's resources, and in my experience I have rarely if ever met a man who achieved preeminence in money-making—certainly never one in manufacturing—who was interested in many concerns. The men who have succeeded are men who have chosen one line and stuck to it. It is surprising how few men appreciate the enormous dividends derivable ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... holy mystic art in which so many Gods delight; by which their worshippers do them honour; which affords so much pleasure, so much useful instruction? To return once more to the poets: when I think of your affection for Homer and Hesiod, I am amazed to find you disputing the preeminence they assign to the dance. Homer, in enumerating all that is sweetest and best, mentions sleep, love, song, and dance; but of these dance alone is 'faultless.' He testifies, moreover, to the 'sweetness' of song: now our art includes 'sweet song' as well as the ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... forever. In the South, the Confederates, bitter and sullen, groping amid the ruins of their institutions, sought to find some substitute for the agricultural despotism exercised for generations by their slaveholding families. In the East, the first families of the Revolution, secure in their preeminence, assumed again the manufacturing-banking-social prestige. The far West was still almost unknown, and remained in possession of the buffalo and the Indian. Settlers poured, in increasing numbers on to the unappropriated ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine, for God's nature, in so far as we share therein, and God's laws, dictate it to us; nor does it suffer from that to which we give the preeminence, except in so far as the latter transcends its limits and cannot be accounted for by natural laws taken in themselves. In respect to the certainty it involves, and the source from which it is derived, i.e., God, ordinary knowledge is no whit inferior to prophetic, unless indeed we ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... off the most tremendous batteries on him.... It is mortifying to the real friends of the President that his fame and his influence should have anything to apprehend from the success of liberty in another country, since he owes his preeminence to the success of it in his own. If France triumphs, the ill-fated proclamation will be a millstone, which would sink any other character and will force a struggle even on his." Yet it is certain that Washington was not in the least doubt as to his own political principles; ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... and wisdom to his posterity. He would try to gain their secrets from all the temples and this would increase his power immensely; he would secure to Egypt preeminence above Assyria. ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... propositions which, with time for adducing the evidence in detail, might, I think, be established: that, in the consensus of learned people, Thucydides and Tacitus stand at the head of historians; and that it is not alone their accuracy, love of truth, and impartiality which entitle them to this preeminence since Gibbon and Gardiner among the moderns possess equally the same qualities. What is it, then, that makes these men supreme? In venturing a solution of this question, I confine myself necessarily to the English translations of the Greek and Latin authors. We have thus a common denominator ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... independent of the first, a bar Of equal force restrains from hating that. "Grant the distinction just; and it remains The' evil must be another's, which is lov'd. Three ways such love is gender'd in your clay. There is who hopes (his neighbour's worth deprest,) Preeminence himself, and coverts hence For his own greatness that another fall. There is who so much fears the loss of power, Fame, favour, glory (should his fellow mount Above him), and so sickens at the thought, He loves their opposite: and ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... ancestors across which he was slowly drifting, into what unknown world? He should be a veritable god among the underlings, he knew; but somehow a doubt assailed him. It was evident that these two from that other world were ready to question his preeminence. Even through his great egotism was filtering a suspicion that they patronized him; perhaps even pitied him. Then he began to wonder what was to become of him. No longer would he have many rykors to do his bidding. Only this single ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... wealth and prosperity of the republic of Venice were largely due to its preeminence in the Oriental trade, carried on by the overland route through Asia, in caravans. By the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope the Portuguese opened the sea-route to India, by which the products of the East were carried to Europe ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... had ever known ensued, and the highest products of Greek civilization were attained. Attica had braved everything for the common cause of Greece, even to leaving Athens to be burned by the invader, and for the next fifty years she held the position of political as well as cultural preeminence among the Greek City-States. Athens now became the world center of wealth and refinement and the home of art and literature (R. 7), and her influence along cultural lines, due in part to her mastery of the sea and her growing commerce, was now extended ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... the winter delightfully, reading to each other, and lately studying German. I knew a little, just enough to empower me to hold the rod, and be somewhat impertinent, and I have entire preeminence in the way of pronunciation. But ever and anon I am made quite humble by being helped out of thick forests by my knight, instead of guiding him. So we teach each other in the most charming manner, and I call it the royal road to knowledge, finally ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... never been wanting men, and strong men, to echo these appeals. From Cornelius Agrippa and his essay (1509) on the excellence of woman and her preeminence over man, down to the first youthful thesis of Agassiz, "Mens Feminae Viri Animo superior," there has been a succession of voices crying in the wilderness. In England, Anthony Gibson wrote a book, in 1599, called "A Woman's Woorth, defended against all the Men in the ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the death of our Lord the King," was membership of a Reform society! Mr. Erskine defended him: "I will assert the freedom of an Englishman; I will maintain the dignity of man, I will vindicate and glory in the principles which raised this country to her preeminence among the nations of the earth; and as she shone the bright star of the morning to shed the light of liberty upon nations which now enjoy it, so may she continue in her radiant sphere to revive the ancient privileges of the world which have been lost, and still to bring them forward ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Aeragnaricii, and the most gentle Finns, milder than all the inhabitants of Scandza. Like them are the Vinovilith also. The Suetidi are of this stock and excel the rest in stature. However, the Dani, who trace their origin to the same stock, drove from their homes the Heruli, who lay claim to preeminence among all the nations of Scandza for their tallness. Furthermore there are in the same neighborhood the 24 Grannii, Augandzi, Eunixi, Taetel, Rugi, Arochi and Ranii, over whom Roduulf was king not many years ago. ...
— The Origin and Deeds of the Goths • Jordanes
... allusions to the priest with a shrug of the shoulders, or, at times, with coldness or open hostility towards that worthy. The Church has fallen into disrepute in Mexico, and it is impossible that it should ever regain its former preeminence. The humble peones arouse the foreigner's pity. Poor people! they are bound by centuries of class-distinction and priestly craft transplanted from an old-world monarchy. These people are generally affectionate and respectful; they will undergo hardship and toil to serve us ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... conclusion. From this are derived those results of the rhetoricians drawn from contraries, which they call enthymemes. Not that every sentence may not be legitimately called an enthymeme; but, as Homer on account of his preeminence has appropriated the general name of poet to himself as his own among all the Greeks; so, though every sentence is an enthymeme, still, because that which is made up of contraries appears the most acute argument of the kind, ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... Abraham Lincoln, whose death had but just closed the national tragedy, is delineated in a manner that gives this poet a preeminence, among those who capture likeness in enduring verse, that we award to Velasquez among those who fasten it upon the canvas. 'One of Plutarch's men' is before us, face to face; an historic character whom Lowell fully comprehended, and to whose height he reached in this great strophe. Scarcely less ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... the varieties of style that had prevailed for many preceding ages. Next to the magnificent cathedrals, the venerable monasteries and collegiate establishments, which had been founded and sumptuously endowed in every part of the kingdom, might most justly claim the preeminence; and many of the churches belonging to them were deservedly held in admiration for their grandeur and architectural elegance ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... have never seen such stupendous arms to any trees." Everything was running wild; "the underwood was of myrtle, growing sometimes twenty feet high, the beautiful daphne laurel, and the arbutus; and they seemed contending for preeminence with the vine, clematis, and woodbine, which climbed to the very tops, and in many instances bore them down into a thicket of vegetation, impervious except to the squirrels and birds, which, sensible of their security ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... how the mob would gather every morning round his door to see him descend, insolent from his toilet, and mount and ride away. Indeed, he surpassed us all in all the exercises of the body. He even essayed preeminence in the arts (as if his own art were insufficient to his vitality!) and was for ever penning impenuous verses for circulation among his friends. There was no great harm in this, perhaps. Even the handwriting of Mr. Brummell was not unknown in the albums. But D'Orsay's painting ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... having elaborated a system of private law that was logically deduced from clearly formulated principles and was destined to become the fundamental law of all civilized communities. But even in connection with this private law, where the originality of Rome is uncontested and her preeminence absolute, recent researches have shown with how much tenacity the Hellenized Orient maintained its old legal codes, and how much resistance local customs, the woof of the life of nations, offered to unification. In truth, unification never was realized except ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... was descended from the princely German house of Nassau, which had already flourished eight centuries, had long disputed the preeminence with Austria, and had given one Emperor to Germany. Besides several extensive domains in the Netherlands, which made him a citizen of this republic and a vassal of the Spanish monarchy, he possessed also in France the independent ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... first orator in America,—and that we esteem much the same as saying that he is first among those whose vernacular is the English tongue. That no speeches are made of equal value with his, that he has an intellectual superiority to all competitors in the forum, we do not assert; but his preeminence in pure oratorical genius may now be considered as established and unquestionable. Ajax has the strength, perhaps more than the strength, of Achilles; but Achilles adds to vigor of arm incomparable swiftness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... authority that is not now considered convincing. Later biographers of Swift,—Sir Henry Craik, Leslie Stephen, Mr. Churton Collins,—have borne witness to the human interest of Scott's biography, and its preeminence, in spite of inaccuracies, among all the Lives of Swift that have been written. But Mr. Churton Collins thinks Scott did not present a really clear view of Swift's mysterious character, and Craik says he took only the conventional attitude towards Swift's ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... the whole English world that he was at war with Cibber; and, to show that he thought him no common adversary, he prepared no common vengeance; he published a new edition of the Dunciad[140], in which he degraded Theobald from his painful preeminence, and enthroned Cibber in his stead. Unhappily the two heroes were of opposite characters, and Pope was unwilling to lose what he had already written; he has, therefore, depraved his poem by giving to Cibber the old books, the cold pedantry, and the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... "Hector, there is no persuading you to take advice. Because heaven has so richly endowed you with the arts of war, you think that you must therefore excel others in counsel; but you cannot thus claim preeminence in all things. Heaven has made one man an excellent soldier; of another it has made a dancer or a singer and player on the lyre; while yet in another Jove has implanted a wise understanding of which men reap fruit to the saving of many, and ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... these pillars on their coins was the inscription, ne plus ultra—nothing beyond. They imagined, therefore, that they constituted the limits of creation; that beyond them there was nothing. Consequently, as in creation the last is the best, they gave to themselves the preeminence. In this proud idea they rested and praised the Lord. In their own estimation, therefore, they constituted the ne plus ultra of God's favored people. Thus they constituted another proud monument ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... coal, the greatest mineral product of the State, was given preeminence. A piece of anthracite coal weighing 11 tons, said to be the largest unbroken piece of this coal ever taken from the ground, was surrounded by pyramidal glass cases in which were displayed anthracite ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... established the New York Times. Charles A. Dana, who made the New York Sun the most quoted newspaper of his generation, was not a college graduate. William Cullen Bryant, who gave to the New York Evening Post a peculiar distinction and preeminence, went to ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... place. Yet it was impossible to make choice of any Englishman without giving offence either to the Whigs or to the Tories; nor had any Englishman then living shown that he possessed the military skill necessary for the conduct of a campaign. On the other band it was not easy to assign preeminence to a foreigner without wounding the national sensibility of the haughty islanders. One man there was, and only one in Europe, to whom no objection could be found, Frederic, Count of Schomberg, a German, sprung from a noble house of the Palatinate. He was generally esteemed the greatest living master ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... things often seemed to Christian people of Dora's type and day, if they spoke their true minds, to be tinged with atheism and secularism. They were jealous all the time for something better. They instinctively felt that the preeminence of certain ideas, most dear to them, was threatened by this absorption in the detail ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... senses fled and her wit was dazed and love of him gat hold upon her whole heart. So she pressed him to her bosom and fell to kissing him like the billing of doves, whilst he returned her caresses with successive kisses; but preeminence appertaineth to precedence.[FN437] When she had made an end of kissing, she took the ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... the bitterest opposition of a so-called sugar trust, and brought on a "war" signalized by the most ruthless cutting of prices of both coffee and sugar. This war was costly to both sides; but when it had ended, Arbuckle Bros. remained unshaken in the preeminence of their package-coffee business and had acquired also great publicity and a fine trade in ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and two English tourists, awaited Magdalena on the verandah. The strangers gave Magdalena a faint shock: being the only well-dressed men she had ever seen except Trennahan, they assumed a family likeness to him, and seemed to steal something of his preeminence among men. She commented distantly on this fact as she went up the ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... person who shall exercise it in our name, and with our authority and power; and no person, whether secular or ecclesiastical, and no order, convent, or religious community, of whatever state, condition, rank, and preeminence he or they may be, shall for any occasion and cause whatever, judicially or extra-judicially, dare to meddle in any matter touching my royal patronage, to injure us in it—to appoint to any church, benefice, or ecclesiastical office, or to be accepted if he shall have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... reserving themselves for the more shining passages with which this tragedy so much abounds: but Barry knew the value of these introductory traits of character, and in his first speech, "'Tis better as it is," bespoke such a preeminence of judgment, such a dignified and manly forbearance of temper, as roused the attention of his audience, and led them to expect the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... at heart, offered the hand of his daughter Elizabeth. So early were the concerns and interests blended, of two princesses whose celebrated rivalry was destined to endure until the life of one of them had become its sacrifice! So remarkably, too, in this first transaction was contrasted the high preeminence from which the Scottish princess was destined to hurl herself by her own misconduct, with the abasement and comparative insignificance out of which her genius and her good fortune were to be employed in elevating the future ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... judges to have the most stylish modes of hair-dressing, and Jane Andrews—plain, plodding, conscientious Jane—carried off the honors in the domestic science course. Even Josie Pye attained a certain preeminence as the sharpest-tongued young lady in attendance at Queen's. So it may be fairly stated that Miss Stacy's old pupils held their own in the wider arena of the ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... deserted by ships and sailormen, there filled away past Cape Ann one hundred and fifty-eight vessels of all sizes to scan the horizon for British topsails. They accounted for four hundred prizes, or half the whole number to the credit of American arms afloat. This preeminence was due partly to freedom from a close blockade and partly to a seafaring population which was born and bred to its trade and knew no other. Besides the crews of Salem merchantmen, privateering enlisted the ...
— The Old Merchant Marine - A Chronicle of American Ships and Sailors, Volume 36 in - the Chronicles Of America Series • Ralph D. Paine
... feeble, decaying body! For God I sacrifice it. I should recant? Never! Faith is not enveloped in this or that garb; it must be naked and open. So may mine be. And if I then am chosen to be an example of pure faith, that denies not, and makes profession—well, then, envy me not this preeminence. 'Many are called, but few are chosen.' If I am one of the chosen, I thank God for it, and bless the erring mortals who wish to make me such by means of the torture of the rack. Ah, believe me, Catharine, I rejoice to die, for it is such a sad, desolate, and desperate ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... why. "For England," as one man has put it, "victory must mean prosperity. However triumphant she may be in arms, her future lies in a preeminence in world industries. Through it she will rise as an empire or sink ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... strength and safety of Pausanias. And to this end his previous policy of arrogance was not so idle as it had seemed to the Greeks, and appears still in the page of history. For a Spartan really anxious to preserve the preeminence of his country, and to prevent the sceptre of the seas passing to Athens, could have devised no plan of action more sagacious and profound than one which would disperse the Ionians, and the Athenians themselves, and reduce the operations of the Grecian force to that ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... find Bactria, which was certainly subject to Persia during the earlier years of the monarchy, occupying an independent position, and even assuming an attitude of hostility toward the Persian monarch. Bactria had, from a remote antiquity, claims to preeminence among the Aryan nations. She was more than once inclined to revolt from the Achaemenidae, and during the later Parthian period she had enjoyed a sort of semi-independence. It would seem that she now succeeded in detaching herself altogether from her southern neighbor ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... to such distinction fare before us and show us the way." Then all with one accord replied, "O Princes of fair ones, there be none amongst us worthy of such honour, nor may any wight dare to ride before thee." So when she saw that none amongst them claimed preeminence or right of guidance, and none desired to take precedence of the rest, she made excuse and said, "O my lords, 'tis not for me by right to lead the way, but since ye order I must needs obey." Accordingly she pushed on to the front, and after came ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... always been a rival of Bob O' Tims's. Jimmy's grandfather had fought at the Battle of Waterloo. This gave him great prestige, and it was almost universally believed, in Chellowdene, that the preeminence of the British Empire was mainly due to the battle-zeal of Jimmy's ancestry. But whenever Jimmy talked about his grandfather, Bob skilfully turned the conversation to his game-cock. This made Jimmy testy, and one day he told Bob, in contemptuous tones, ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... against the spirit, and therfore wold not the holie ghost geue example of subiection to the woman of any suche thing &c. This sentence of Augustine oght to be noted of all women, for in it he plainlie affirmeth, that woman oght to be subiect to man, that she neuer oght, more to desire preeminence aboue him, then that she oght to desire aboue Christe Iesus. With Augustine agreeth in euerie point S. Ambrose, who thus writeth in his Hexaemeron[48]: Adam was deceiued by Heua, and not Heua by Adam, and therfore iust it is, that woman receiue and acknowledge him for gouernor ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... drink of water from the Gordon well. At such times Thomas Jefferson remarked that his mother always hastened to serve the Major with her own hands; this notwithstanding her own and Uncle Silas's oft-repeated asseveration touching the Major's unenviable preeminence as a Man of Sin. Also, he remarked that the Major's manner at such moments was a thing to dazzle the eye, like the reflection of the summer sun on the surface of burnished metal. But beneath the polished exterior, the groping perceptions of the boy would touch a thing repellent; a thing to ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... we most dearly miss, The latest parted thence, His features poised in genial armistice 220 And armed neutrality of self-defence Beneath the forehead's walled preeminence, While Tyro, plucking facts with careless reach, Settles off-hand our human how and whence; The long-trained veteran scarcely wincing hears The infallible strategy of volunteers Making through Nature's walls its easy breach, And seems to learn where he alone could teach. Ample ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... Moses: "I will not give thee my soul." Samael: "All souls since the creation of the world were delivered into my hands." Moses: "I am greater than all others that came into the world, I have had a greater communion with the spirit of God than thee and thou together." Samael: "Wherein lies thy preeminence?" Moses: "Dost thou not know that I am the son of Amram, that came circumcised out of my mother's womb, that at the age of three days not only walked, but even talked with my parents, that took no milk from my mother until she received her pay from Pharaoh's daughter? When I was three months old, ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... things derive their government—we willingly do our share of the duty entrusted to us from above, to the end that they who now are in darkness may be enabled to enjoy the true light which is Christ Jesus, and that the rays of His light may beam upon them. Wherefore, in accordance with the preeminence of this apostolic see in the regions of the earth, all and singular, as required by necessity and other reasonable motives, we plant new episcopal sees and churches, that by new plantations may be increased the new adhesion of peoples to the church militant; that everywhere may arise, spread, and ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... arrogance and imposing his own will on his fellows, the 'brother of low degree' needs not less to be exhorted to beware of letting envy and self-will hiss and snarl in his heart at those who are in higher positions than himself. If the chief of all needs to be reminded that in Christ's household preeminence means service, the lower no less needs to be reminded that in Christ's household ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... not go so far as to render the unit incapable of doing its work, is sufficiently advanced to make uncontrolled individualism impossible. Let any class of Hydra's cells, such as the nerve or muscle network, assume to exercise a selfish preeminence or to conduct a "strike," the other classes, like the feeding cells, would not be properly served and they would be unable in consequence to work efficiently for the strikers. The immediate result would be suicidal, for the selfish nerve-class ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... pious females courted the permission of imprinting kisses on the fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had received. Their persons were esteemed holy, their decisions were admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by their spiritual pride and licentious manners, the preeminence which their zeal and intrepidity had acquired. Distinctions like these, whilst they display the exalted merit, betray the inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who died, for the profession ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... Socialism. I am not myself an advocate of "perfect Socialism," but as to Government ownership of railways, there is doubtless a good deal to be said on both sides. One argument in its favor appears decisive; under a system subject to popular control the law of gravitation would be shorn of its preeminence as a means of removing personal property from the baggage car, and so far as it is applicable to that work might even ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... to raise the German people to their present commanding position in the world, is their thoroughness. It is giving young Germans a great advantage over both English and American youths. Every employer is looking for thoroughness, and German employees, owing to their preeminence in this respect, the superiority of their training, and the completeness of their preparation for business, are in great demand to-day in England, especially in banks ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... not our daily victory to-day, eh? Well, so it goes; we must not expect to win always. We must have reverses, and heavy ones too; but in the end we must win. To lose now would mean national extinction. To win means Germany's commercial and military preeminence in ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... nation does not long endure the preeminence of a single, well-centred personality; for the life and the power and the needs of a nation are more manifold than even the greatest single force and lofty aim. The eternal contrast between the individual and the nation appears. Even the soul of ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... occasion, and in boasts resembling those which Virgil put into the mouth of Anchises. The superiority of some foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, in the lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with disdainful candor; but preeminence in all the qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern mankind would be ...
— Lays of Ancient Rome • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... points of excellence, and can scarcely fail to afford amusement and pleasure, as well as to impart instruction, to all who may avail themselves of the opportunity of examining them, they will be of especial service to amateurs who aspire to preeminence in chess. ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... before the Conquest. The contests of the years immediately following 1066 led to a short period of decay, but very soon increasing trade and handicraft led to still greater progress. London, especially, now made good its position as one of the great cities of Europe, and that preeminence among English towns which it has never since lost. The fishing and seaport towns along the southern and eastern coast also, and even a number of inland towns, came to hold a much more influential place in the nation than they had possessed in the ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... epistles are, then, each of them contains weighty instruction—the first, in reference to ill-timed kindness and liberality towards the teachers of error; the second, concerning the character and conduct of those who love to have the preeminence, and the abhorrence in which they ought to be held by all who love the purity ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... said Phebe. But Felicita pondered over the possibility of Roland having paid the penalty of his crime, and going back again to take up his life, walking more humbly in it evermore, with no claim to preeminence save that of most diligently serving his fellow-men. She endeavored to picture herself receiving him back again from the convict prison, with all its shameful memories branded on him, and looking upon him again as her husband and the father of her children; and she found herself ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... such belief. What is there in material man that he should be immortal? "Men are an accident, and the beasts are an accident, and the same accident befalleth them all; as these die even so die those, and the selfsame breath have they all, nor is there any preeminence of man above beast; for all is nothingness."[130] Nor can any such flattering hope be grounded upon the moral order, because there are no signs of morality in the conduct of the world. "To righteous men that happeneth which should befall wrong-doers, and that betideth criminals which ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... depicted as dishonest and imbecile, repudiators of national and individual obligations, communists or anarchists bearing the torch and axe. This specialty is Mr. Cleveland's long suit. Little wonder that his school should place him at its head. His preeminence in the field where self-admiration is a supreme virtue and ribald abuse passes for irrefutable argument will scarcely be denied by anybody who shall have read the following characteristic specimens from this ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Yin. The rising knolls and winding streams and far-off views of hills lying in the mist-like distance, showed perhaps that moderate prosperity would be the lot of those whose kindred might be buried there; but there were no signs of preeminence in scholarship, or of mandarins riding on horseback or in sedan-chairs, with great retinues attending them, as they proceeded in haughty dignity through the streets of the city in which they lived as rulers. Such places ...
— Chinese Folk-Lore Tales • J. Macgowan
... intricacy of the books, the multitude of the instruments, or the variety of the experimental apparatus in the use of which the searchers into thy mysteries must be familiar; we are compelled to reverence the courage of him who seeks preeminence through thee, and to yield to those mortals who have attained thy favours, our wonder, admiration, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... cities of Italy, besides the Royal Academy of London (1660), and the Academy of Sciences in Paris (1666). From the period of the first institution of universities, that of Bologna had maintained its preeminence. Padua, Ferrara, Pavia, Turin, Florence, Siena, Pisa, and Rome were also seats of learning. The men who directed the scientific studies of their country and of Europe were almost universally attached as professors to these institutions. Indeed, at this period, ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... apparatus solved, there was no longer any limit to the exercise of inventive genius in the advancement of the printing art; and it is, therefore, to the printer's roller, more than to any one thing, that that art owes its wonderful preeminence to-day. ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... lack of artistic taste. It is a pity Creil is so banal on close acquaintance, for it is bejewelled with emerald hills and a tiny belt of silvery water which, in the savage days of long ago, must have given it preeminence among similar ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... Worms, [Sidenote: 1122] could not permanently settle the relations of the two. Whereas Aquinas and the Canon Law maintained the superiority of the pope, there were not lacking asserters of the imperial preeminence. William of Occam's argument to prove that the emperor might depose an heretical pope was taken up by Marsiglio of Padua, whose Defender of the Peace [Sidenote: c. 1324] ranks among the ablest ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... History is, just now, a fortunate event, and its appearance two years since might have saved us much costly and mortifying experience. Enlightened men of all nations concede to the French school of soldiers and military authors a certain preeminence, due partly to the genius of the people and partly to the immense vital growth of war-craft under Napoleon. Barre Duparcq is one of the most favorably known among recent military writers in France. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... replied: "O thou of graceful manners and sweet smiling face, know that having conceived a desire to learn thy gait, I have followed thy steps for a long time past, and wish to acquire thy manner of walking, in order that I may place the foot of preeminence on ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... the gratitude or to the imagination of the masses, have usually been supposed to inhere in the class they permit to rule over them. By virtue of some or all of these things, its members have had allowed to them their privileges and their precedency, their rights of exemption and of preeminence, their voice potential in the councils of the state, and their claim to be foremost in its defence in the hour of its danger. Some ray of imagination there is, which, falling on the knightly shields and heraldic devices ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... popularity with them was by no means prejudiced by her infelix reputation. But while she was secretly admired by all, she had few professed followers and no regular associates. Whether the few whom she selected for that baleful preeminence were either torn from her by horrified guardians, or came to grief through her dangerous counsels, or whether she really did not care for them, I could not say. Their elevation was brief, their retirement unregretted. It was however ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... possess on all occasions the keynote to applause. The faculty of never degenerating into dulness, the rock on which most pianists are wrecked in early youth, is another just cause for insuring to our compatriot the preeminence which he enjoys. Viewed from a critical point, the mechanical endowments and acquirements of Gottschalk are such as to enable him to subject his playing to the test of keenest analysis without detriment to his reputation. For clearness ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and all greatness is from Him alone. And those who are born great, who acquire greatness, or who have greatness thrust upon them, alike owe their superiority to Him. Nor are these advantages and this preeminence due to our merits and deserts. Everything that comes to us from God is purely gratuitous on His part, and undeserved on ours. Since our very existence is the effect of a free act of His will, why should not, for a greater reason, all that is accidental to that existence ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... dissolving action which America exerts—through its novelties and its example—on the old civilization of Europe." The point is very well taken, and contains the germ of a great novel of the United States. And just as Canaan stands by itself in Brazilian literature, so might such a novel achieve preeminence ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis |
