"Supererogation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sins; let us look forward. You did very prudently to return to Hamburg, to good bark, and, I hope, a good physician. Make all sure there before you stir from thence, notwithstanding the requests or commands of all the princesses in Europe: I mean a month at least, taking the bark even to supererogation, that is, some time longer than Dr. Middleton requires; for, I presume, you are got over your childishness about tastes, and are sensible that your health deserves more attention than your palate. When you shall be thus re-established, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... gave himself to all the delightful bye-tasks: the works of supererogation, the excursions into side paths, the niggling with proofs, the toying with style, the potterings and polishings, the ruminations, and rewritings and refinements which make the joy of the man of letters. For five-and-twenty ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... making those of their oppressors tingle. Knowing their persecutors to be in the wrong, they did not always inquire whether they themselves had been entirely right, and had done no unrequired works of supererogation by the way of "testimony" against their neighbors' mode cf worship. And so from pillory and whipping-post, from prison and scaffold, they sent forth their wail and execration, their miserere and anathema, and the sound thereof has reached ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... takes days and even weeks of consideration after an opportunity of making one has occurred before the appropriate words finally dawn upon me. By that time, of course, the retort is what the Catholics call "a work of supererogation." I perhaps possess a slight "sense of the humorous," which has undoubtedly given rise to the fatal demand upon me, but I do not remember ever having been very funny. There never was any danger of my experiencing difficulties like Dr. Holmes on that famous occasion when he ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... remembrance of the Yorkshire pudding, vulgarly called choke-dog, of which you were obliged to eat a pound before you were allowed a slice of beef, and of which, if you swallowed half that quantity, you thought cooks and oxen mere works of supererogation, and totally useless on the face of the earth? Has the fool lost all recollection of the prayers in yon cold, wet, clay-floored cellar, proudly denominated the chapel? has he forgot the cuffs from the senior boys, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... various sizes. A small dissecting dish may be made by pouring melted paraffin wax into one of those shallow china pots chemists use for cold-cream, and tadpoles may be pinned out with entemologists' pins and dissected with needles. But this is a work of supererogation. Partially incubated hen's eggs may be obtained at a small cost almost anywhere, and the later stages profitably examined and dissected under warm water. For a clear understanding of the allantois ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... themselves honest asserters of the monarchy, zealous defenders of the constitution, and real friends to the protestant succession. She thought she had very little reason to countenance a compliment of supererogation to a prince who had caballed with the enemies of her administration. On the twenty-first day of June the queen closed the session with a speech, expressing her satisfaction at the addresses and supplies she had received; she observed, that should the treaty be broke off, their burdens ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... commands but permissions. For He permitted them to set forth to preach without scrip or stick, and so on, since they were empowered to accept their livelihood from those to whom they preached: wherefore He goes on to say: "For the laborer is worthy of his hire." Nor is it a sin, but a work of supererogation for a preacher to take means of livelihood with him, without accepting supplies from those to whom he preaches; as Paul did ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,' could only have been induced to investigate the intellectual status of the 'rising generation' of our village, there is little room to doubt that, as they are not deemed advocates for works of supererogation, they would long ago have appreciated the expediency of disbanding said society. I imagine Tennyson is a clairvoyant, and was looking at the young people of ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Pelliciari, dealing with the fortunes of the children of the heroes and heroines of Tasso and Guarini. We are on the way to a genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance that centred round Roland and Launcelot. It would be a work of supererogation to demonstrate in detail the influence exercised by Tasso and Guarini over their Italian followers, and a task of forbidding proportions to give the bare titles of the plays that witnessed to that influence. Serassi reports that in 1614 Clementi Bartoli of Urbino possessed no less than ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... these stories constitute the key-stone of the orthodox arch, that I originally drew attention to them; and, in spite of my longing for peace, I am truly obliged to Mr. Gladstone for compelling me to place my case before the public once more. It may be thought that this is a work of supererogation by those who are aware that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated as the "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture"; and who may possibly, in their simplicity, assume that it must be truthfully ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... herself, the family always had felt that poor George had married beneath him. Therefore it was well to keep the fact of her own superior refinement well in view. In the case of good George Lovegrove this was, however, a work of supererogation. For he had a, to himself, positively embarrassing respect for Serena's gentility— embarrassing because at moments it came painfully near endangering the completeness of his consideration for "the ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Lamont told them that they were the first people he ever knew who lived entirely for others, without any regard to their own pleasure; and that were he a Roman Catholic, he should beg of them to confer on him the merit of some of their works of supererogation. ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... islands,—at the BACK of one of which a pilot is waiting for him,—will, in all probability, have already placed his vessel in a position to render that functionary's further attendance a work of supererogation. At least, I know it was as much surprise as pleasure that I experienced, when, after having with many misgivings ventured to slip through an opening in the monotonous barricade of mountains, we found it was the right channel to our port. If the king of all the Goths would only stick ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... indeed seem to be an act of supererogation to compile further evidence of the infamy of this entire business: what ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... winnings, and consider to refund, a work of supererogation—In looking after my father, I obey the old adage, "Follow ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... avalanche. accumulation &c (store) 636; heap &c 72; drug, drug in the market; glut; crowd; burden. excess; surplus, overplus^; epact^; margin; remainder &c 40; duplicate; surplusage^, expletive; work of supererogation; bonus, bonanza. luxury; intemperance &c 954; extravagance &c (prodigality) 818; exorbitance, lavishment^. pleonasm &c (diffuseness) 573; too many irons in the fire; embarras de richesses [Fr.]. V. superabound, overabound^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Torah, or Scripture. Thus it cannot be said that belief was, in the Rabbinic system, perfectly free. Equally inaccurate is the assertion that conduct was entirely a matter of prescription. Not only were men praised for works of supererogation, performance of more than the Law required; not only were there important divergences in the practical rules of conduct formulated by the various Rabbis; but there was a whole class of actions described as 'matters given over to the heart,' delicate ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... thousand pieces of eight. Gold has at all times been considered the best of testimonies of good faith, and Blood was determined that in all respects appearances should be entirely on his side. His followers had accounted this a supererogation of pretence. But Blood's will in the matter had prevailed. He carried further a bulky package addressed to a grande of Spain, heavily sealed with the arms of Espinosa—another piece of evidence hastily ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... the clock struck, Loo turned to him with a laugh and a shake of the head as if the refusal were so self-evident that to put it into words were a work of supererogation. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... both what faith is and what faith does, and have also published my Confession [1528], setting forth both what I believe and what position I intend to maintain; and whereas the devil continues to seek new intrigues against me, I have decided, by way of supererogation, to publish conjointly, in the German tongue, the three so-called Symbols, or Confessions, which have hitherto been received, read, and chanted throughout the Church. I would thereby reaffirm the fact that I side with the true Christian Church, which has adhered to these ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... of life; it depends on facing frankly the thought of death; it is signalized, especially, by the identification of self with others, even of the guiltless with the guilty. Spirituality is sometimes spoken of as if it were a kind of moral luxury, a work of supererogation, a token of fastidiousness and over-refinement. It is nothing of the sort. Spirituality is simply morality carried to its farthest bounds; it is not an airy bauble of the fancy, it is of "the tough fibre ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... resembles an irritable baboon, I have little to do. The marchioness—a strong woman is also, mercifully, too much engaged upon works of supererogation, which, in a rich bass, she styles "her manifold duties," to observe my existence. Lord Pomfret Fresne, however, a gilded youth with three thousand a year, finds me extremely useful. I bet for him, I make appointments for him to have his hair trimmed, I retain stalls for ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... merely assumed by such as were anxious to make atonement for some heavy sin; it was often voluntarily undertaken by individuals whose lives had been blameless, and who were anxious by this work of supererogation to increase their stock of merits. If the penitent died of his disease, the intention of his sacrifice was believed to be availing in the sight of Heaven; if he recovered, he became a monk. No less a doom than excommunication, and a rigorous penitential seclusion during life within ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 552, June 16, 1832 • Various
... whatever they might construct or dissolve, would involve no progress or disaster, since no preferences would exist to pronounce one eventual state of things better than another. These preferences are in themselves, if the dynamic order alone be considered, works of supererogation, expressing force but not producing it, like a statue of Hercules; but the principle of such preferences, the force they express and depend upon, is some mechanical impulse itself involved in the causal process. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... SUPEREROGATION, WORKS OF, name given in the Roman Catholic theology to works or good deeds performed by saints over and above what is required for their own salvation, and the merit of which is held to be transferable to others in need ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... What hope? What consolation? None! You might make good confessions and communions, practice all the self-denials required of one in your vocation, and the only thing that the church could give you, the only gleam of hope she could offer, was that, through your works of supererogation, your purgatory would be lessened; and now, wasted through suffering and consumption, dreading the punishment of purgatory, endeavoring in your dying state to do something to lessen its pangs, you have walked with glass in your shoes and your poor feet give evidence of the ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... maintain that it is possible, without having to maintain that it is probable. For, as I have often said, it is agreed that the Mysteries are against appearances. He who upholds the Mystery need not even adduce such an instance; and should he adduce it, it were indeed a work of supererogation, or else an instrument of greater confusion to ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... suffrage for the agonizing souls; and fearful lest in the midst of the purgatorial fire, which differed from the infernal only in that it was not everlasting, his penance might avail no more than a drop of moisture, he drove his soul daily through an increasing circle of works of supererogation. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... does he give for this work of supererogation? None. He does not (as we shall see more fully by and by) take the slightest notice of Mackintosh's history, no more than if it had never existed. Has he produced a new fact? Not one. Has he discovered any new materials? None, as far as we can judge, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... produced, whensoever, and wheresoever. I daresay I should have no difficulty in adding two or three cases to the list, which I know to be true, and which I have no doubt would be contradicted, but I consider it a work of supererogation; for, if the people at large be not already convinced that a sufficient general case has been made out for Administrative Reform, I think they never can be, and they never will be. There is, however, an old indisputable, very ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... remark that the winter of last year was very similar, were told that they must have been mistaken; and some who recollected high winds were considered romancers. We looked at the strong contre-vents placed outside the windows of our dwelling, and wondered why such a work of supererogation should have taken place as to put them there, if the hurricanes we had witnessed were unusual, when I one day, during a high wind, as I sat at home, happened to take up Palassou's Memorial des Pyrenees, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... editor, that an author has no right to the emanations of his own mind—to the productions of his own pen. We do not mean to answer the many and gross absurdities—which this talented gentleman's sophistry has palmed upon the public,—it would be a work of supererogation, inasmuch as his 'airy vision' has already been completely 'dissolved' by the breath of that eminent gentleman, well known to us, who has so completely annihilated the wrong which he is so anxious to continue. But the shameful assumption ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... God to avoid mortal sin is not a vow, in the strict sense of the word; or rather such a promise is outside the ordinary province of the vow, which naturally embraces works of supererogation and counsel. It is unnecessary and highly imprudent to make such promises under vow. A promise to commit sin is a blasphemous outrage. If what we promise to do is something indifferent, vain and useless, opposed to evangelical counsels or ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... thereby, or how much richer is he at last than he was when he first set up for himself? Nay, doth not the blot of his ill living betwixt his first and his last, lie as a blemish upon him, unless he should redeem himself also, by works of supererogation, from the scandal that justice may lay at his ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... same I cannot help thinking their services are a matter of supererogation, for a recalcitrant Irish tenant in the South and West needs instruction in no branch ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... or not at all. It is alone in pursuance of that will that any measure can reach the President, and to say that because a majority in Congress have passed a bill he should therefore sanction it is to abrogate the power altogether and to render its insertion in the Constitution a work of absolute supererogation. The duty is to guard the fundamental will of the people themselves from (in this case; I admit, unintentional) change or infraction by a majority in Congress; and in that light alone do I regard the constitutional duty which I now most reluctantly discharge. Is this bill now presented for my approval ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... in a generation have the true gift. This cannot be too good. But besides this there is a mass of honest and needful work to be done with the pen, to which literary form is only accidental, and in which consummate literary finish or depth is a sheer work of supererogation. If Miss Martineau had given twice as many years as she gave months to the condensation of Comte, the book would not have been a whit more useful in any possible respect—indeed, over-elaboration might easily have made it much less so—and the world would ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 6: Harriet Martineau • John Morley
... these days of public and private baths, it may seem a work of supererogation to insist upon cleanliness as the first requisite in a lady's toilet. Yet it may be as well to remind our fair readers that fastidiousness on this head cannot be carried too far. Cleanliness is the outward ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... pose as brave endurers of hardships. Each night and morning she carries her little pack on and off shore, takes her share of pot-luck at meat-su, and is never cross. Bless the kiddie! If ablutions seem to her a work of supererogation and our daily play of toothbrush furnishes all the fascination of the unknown, still hers is the right stuff for pioneer lands and she has lessons to teach us in pluck ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... words are capable of expressing, how sensible I am of this more than hospitable kindness, since to provide for and receive the stranger on arrival is the duty of hospitality, but here is a work of supererogation, and though no Roman Catholic myself, yet so catholic as not the less to love and esteem generous actions on all occasions. My most respectful and affectionate regards, with my ardent wishes for your mutual ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various |
