"Excel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... same race with the people of Northern Europe, yet it is certain they profited so much by their guarded situation, by the mildness of their climate favorable to humanity, and by the foreign infusions, that they came greatly to excel the Northern nations in every respect, and particularly in the art and discipline of war. For, not being so strong in their bodies, partly from the temperature of their climate, partly from a degree of softness induced by a more cultivated life, they applied themselves ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... mentioned, however, were but the commencement of a series of disasters to poor Jenkins, which went far to cure him of a desire to excel in the "noo purfession," and to induce a somewhat violent longing for a return to his ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... of smell and taste in many other animals greatly excel those of mankind, for in civilized society, as our victuals are generally prepared by others, and are adulterated with salt, spice, oil, and empyreuma, we do not hesitate about eating whatever is set before us, and neglect to cultivate these senses: whereas ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Beltane I will tell, A knight who did all knights excel, Who loved of all men here below His faithful Giles that bare the bow; For Giles full strong and straight could shoot, A goodly man was ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... are full of gorgeous splendor—how much vital religion they contain, it is not, perhaps, my province to decide. But in beauty of architecture, in the solemnity and grandeur of interior, no city in the world, except Rome, can excel them. The church of the Madeleine is the most imposing of all; indeed, it seemed to me that in all Paris there was no other building so pretentious. But Notre Dame has that mellow quality which ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... good letters, and in nature. He died young; he was one of those whose talent matures slowly, and he died before he came into the full possession of his intellectual kingdom. He had the ambition to excel, [Greek text], as the Homeric motto of his University runs, and he was on the way to excellence when his health broke down. He lingered for ...
— Robert F. Murray - his poems with a memoir by Andrew Lang • Robert F. Murray
... everybody is preparing for the Fourth of July. There are five colored companies here, all in uniform, and they are trying to see who shall excel in drill. ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... neither abates of its vigor nor changes its object; and the reason why it does not, is founded in the nature of things, for wealth has not a rival where avarice is a ruling passion. One beauty may excel another, and extinguish from the mind of man the pictured remembrance of a former one: but wealth is the phoenix of avarice, and therefore it cannot seek a new object, because there is not another in ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... complained to Juno about it. "The nightingale's song," said he, "is the envy of all the birds; but whenever I utter a sound I become a laughing-stock." The goddess tried to console him by saying, "You have not, it is true, the power of song, but then you far excel all the rest in beauty: your neck flashes like the emerald and your splendid tail is a marvel of gorgeous colour." But the Peacock was not appeased. "What is the use," said he, "of being beautiful, with a voice like mine?" ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... however, have each its proper destination—Galland for the nursery, Lane for the library, Payne for the study, and Burton for the sewers" (p. 184). I need hardly attempt to precise the ultimate and well merited office of his article: the gall in that ink may enable it hygienically to excel for certain purposes the best of "curl-papers." Then our critic passes to the history of the work concerning which nothing need be said: it is bodily borrowed from Lane's Preface (pp. ix. xv.), and his Terminal ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... un-American in making the most of one's opportunities. As I've said to you before, Selma, it's the way in which one rises that's the important thing in the individual equation, and every man must choose for himself what that shall be. My ambition is to excel in my profession, and to mould my life to that end without neglecting my duties as a citizen or a husband. If, in the end, I win fame and fortune, so much the better. But there's no use in worrying because other people are more fashionable ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... lee that to them murmur'd low, As he would speak but that he lack'd a tongue, Yet did by signs his glad affection show, Making his stream run slow. And all the fowl which in his flood did dwell 'Gan flock about these twain, that did excel The rest, so far as Cynthia doth shend The lesser stars. So they, enranged well, Did on those two attend, And their best service lend Against their wedding day, which was not long: Sweet Thames! run softly, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... better with the French than with us, though we do not generally give that people credit for excelling us in the outlay of money. Perhaps it is because they enjoy the British market as well as their own that they are enabled to excel us; but they certainly do so in the publication, through private enterprise, of great costly works, having a sort of national character. The efforts to rival them in this country have been considerable and meritorious, but in many instances signally unfortunate. Take, for instance, the ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... gifts of heaven are valued even by some who profess themselves philosophers, who complain that we are not as big as elephants, as swift as stags, as light as birds, as strong as bulls; that the skins of seals are stronger, of hinds prettier, of bears thicker, of beavers softer than ours; that dogs excel us in delicacy of scent, eagles in keenness of sight, crows in length of days, and many beasts in ease of swimming. And although nature itself does not allow some qualities, as for example strength and swiftness, ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... Titan, with his cumbrous brood, That scared the world?—By this sharp 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 ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... national trade unions, city trades' assemblies, local trade unions, and reform organizations of various descriptions, from philosophical anarchists to socialists and woman suffragists. The National Labor Union did not excel in practical activity, but it formed an accurate mirror of the aspirations and ideals of the American mechanics of the time of the Civil War and after. During its six years' existence it ran the gamut of all important issues which agitated the labor ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... Corydon sits on a hill Making melody— Cor. When my lovely one goes to her wheel, Singing cheerily— Phyl. Sure methinks my true love doth excel For sweetness, for sweetness, Our Pan, that old Arcadian knight. Cor. And methinks my true love bears the bell For clearness, for clearness, Beyond the nymphs that be ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... the succeeding century (the fifteenth) felt that they could not rival their predecessors in invention, but might excel them in execution. Original thoughts belonging to this century are comparatively rare; even Raphael and Michael Angelo themselves borrowed all their principal ideas and plans of pictures from their predecessors; but ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... own character was overlaid; he was quick to learn, and in games quick to excel. He made friends amongst his schoolmates, he carried with him to Oxford the charm of manner which is Eton's particular gift, and from Oxford he passed to London. He was rich, he was liked, and he found a ready welcome, which did not spoil him. Luffe would undoubtedly have classed ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... closing ) missing in original and so delightfull to the sences text reads "delighfull" shell, fish, Dactilus, with Pistacke, Nut kernels all commas in original The vpper vessell text reads "ypper" a most excellent daunce or game text reads "excel/cellent" at line break The delightfull presence of the Nymphes text reads "delighfull" Secretaries, wee tearme them Bishoppes, and two Knights "wee tearme them Bishoppes" added by translator they apparrelled in gold text reads "thy" shee is rightly called Thelosia. spelling as in ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... efficient 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 riflemen were made to see how ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... both on account of its exceptional inferiority and of its character. A distinguished ornithologist has said that little birds have two ways of making themselves attractive—by melody and by bright plumage; and that most species excel in one or the other way; and that the acquisition of gay colours by a species of a sober-coloured melodious family will cause it to degenerate as a songster. He is speaking of the redstart. Unfortunately for the rule there are too many exceptions. Thus confining ourselves to a single family—that ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... these savages have also 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 ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... when you knew nothing, and could do nothing, thought yourself superior to all the rest of the world, why should you wonder, that men who really excel others in those things which they see absolutely necessary, should have the same good opinion of themselves? Were you to be in Greenland, for instance, how would you prove your own superiority ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... the chief glory of a general in feats of arms and strategy, the Laconian will be found greatly to excel the Roman. Agesilaus did not abandon Sparta even when it was attacked by seventy thousand men, when he had but few troops with which to defend it, and those too all disheartened by their recent defeat at Leuktra. Pompeius, on hearing that Caesar, with only five thousand three hundred men, had ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... 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 ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... James, impelled by the loftiest of motives,—and, like many others of its kind, had for the present failed. At some other time he might prove more successful; or some other might achieve the object in his place, and so appropriate his laurels; but no one would be likely to excel him in his flying leap. In this he had distanced even the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... mother brought him this reward, that he came to take great pleasure in his work, and all the more that he knew he was laying a good foundation for success in the profession which he had chosen, and in which he meant to excel. For Jem was going to be an engineer, and work with his hands and his head too; and though he had no more chances of shoeing horses now, he had, through a friend of his, many a good chance of handling iron, both hot and cold, in the great engine-house at the other side of the town. ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... trust his motto will be in future, "Paulo majora canamus." Many, with inferior abilities, have acquired a loftier seat on Parnassus, merely by attempting strains in which Mr. Wordsworth is more qualified to excel.[1] ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... differently. As for the English oak, of which one has heard so much, it is no great matter: our own common oaks are much prettier, and, did we understand their beauty, there would not be a village church in America that, in this particular, would not excel the finest English cathedral. I saw nothing in all Europe, of this nature, that equalled the common oaken doors of the hall at C——, ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... measure. The other laws which were given by Moses may be changed by a later prophet even permanently. But the prophet must be greater than Moses, and he must show this by the greatness, number, publicity and permanence of his miracles, which must excel those of Moses. He must likewise show that he was sent by God to change the Law, as clearly as Moses proved that he was sent to give it. But it is unlikely that any such prophet will come, for the Torah says that there never was or will be ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... these medical rules in my old book, in spite of the earth-worms and wood-lice and adders and vipers in which some of them abound (to say nothing of other and more shocking ingredients). In surprising and unpleasant compounds they do not excel the prescriptions in a serious medical book published in Exeter, New Hampshire, as late as 1835. Nor is Cotton Mather's favorite and much-vaunted ingredient millepedes, or sowbugs, once mentioned within. All are not vile in my Queen's Closet—far from it. ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... all this for me, and I shall be always your fond and faithful wife. My brother too is set free from the spell, and he will become again one of the truest and most gentle knights alive, though none can excel my own ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... more intelligent and better educated than the fighting races of northern India, and I therefore thought it could not be difficult to teach them the value of musketry, and make them excel in it. To this end, I encouraged rifle meetings and endeavoured to get General Officers to take an interest in musketry inspections, and to make those inspections instructive and entertaining to the men. I took to rifle-shooting myself, as did the officers ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... Maria Mixon went her own way, working hard, fixing and observing. She had determined to excel herself this time, and not only should her part at the church be above reproach, but the entertainment which she would give that strange preacher would be a thing long to be remembered. And so, almost startled at all that Shiloh ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... hill of Barone; and each day as the calf grew older, so did its weight increase, and the burden become greater to bear. Thus did Kenric make himself strong, until, at the end of that summer of 1263, there was no man in all Bute who could excel him in the use of arms or overcome him in ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... letters are therefore the foes of the race. The licentious thinker and writer prejudices the liberty of thinking and writing. Those who excel in letters, and in the right use of letters, are sensitive to their misapplication. Hence arises a species of satire, or, if you will, satirist—THE SCRIBLERO-MASTIX. He must attack individuals. A heavily-resounding lash should scourge the immoral ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... year, or of any year subsequently from the sowing of the seed that may be desired. Alfalfa in these soils will serve even better than medium red clover in such situations, since while it is growing, it will produce more hay or soiling food, and consequently should excel the former in the fertility ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... having ceased to give them. No one has come forward as their heir, fine as the inheritance is; some are too busy, others have not the kind of talent needed, and none have attempted to replace these gentlemen in this especial line, one in which you excel, both by your gifts and your fortunate choice of a subject more in vogue just now than any other. Come then, to work in this rich vein before others present themselves for the same purpose. Finally, since I must make up your budget, the "Bibliotheque ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... after little sallies of satire and knowingness, such as had offended Mrs. Arrowpoint, to fill the intervening days with the most girlish devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her individual claims was to leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle that Alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her with Miss Merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the ladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen pleased herself with having in readiness for some future occasions ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... Between the nature of the two poets there was a marked and characteristic difference as to their mode of labour and of acquiring knowledge. Both of them loved fame, and wrought for it; but Alfieri did so from a sense of pride and a determination to excel; while Goldoni loved the approbation of his fellows, sought their compliments, and basked in the sunshine of smiles. Alfieri wrote with labour. Each tragedy he composed went through a triple process of composition, and received frequent polishing when finished. Goldoni dashed off his pieces with ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... ambitiously dressed, she was not familiarized to her own ornaments. There are so many competitors for the fame of cleanliness, that it is not hard to gain information of those that fail, from those that desire to excel: I quickly found that Nitella passed her time between finery and dirt; and was always in a wrapper, night-cap, and slippers, when she was not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... right, and I might have had the picture returned. It cannot be very good, or it would not have taken such long and constant labour. Genius, they say, never toils—all comes by inspiration. It may be that I have no genius; well, then, where is the use of my labouring to excel!—indeed, where is the use ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... of inferiority is as prejudicial as the thing itself, and we verily believe that it still has its effect upon the public taste. Artists have not sufficiently taken to etching. We have had more amateurs excel in it than professional artists. There was a collection of amateur etchings at Strawberry Hill, given to Walpole by the etchers. The greater part of them is excellent, though they are mostly copies from other works, but not all. There are ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... 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 excel the other!" ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... civilisation. "The Red Indian goes down before the white man, and the New Zealander vanishes in presence of the English settler." Nature, careless in this stage of evolution about the body, selects for survival those varieties of mankind which excel in mental qualities. Hence it has happened that the physical characteristics of the different races, once fixed in very early prehistoric times, have never greatly varied. They have passed out of the range of Natural Selection because they have become comparatively unimportant in the ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... spirit of confidence and enthusiasm which turned every enterprise he undertook into an adventure,—the brave and humorous playing of the game of life, the true heart, the wholesome body and soul of my friend and classmate. He did not excel in studies or greatly, in athletics. But in his own field, that of writing, he was so much better than the rest of us that no one of his fellow-editors of the Epitome or Burr needed to be considered in comparison with him. No less, in spite of his voluntary nonmembership ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... MUSE! who rulest each melodious lay That floats along the gilded shell, Who the mute tenant of the watry way Canst teach, at pleasure, to excel The softest note harmonious Sorrow brings, When the expiring Swan her ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... erection of splendid edifices at an early date, and after the arrival of the royal Buddhist missionary, Mahindo (son of an Indian king), 306 B.C., fine dagobas and monasteries were added, each successive ruler seeming ambitious to excel ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... of instruction, that he was on the point of quitting the cloister from despair of learning what his vocation required, when the blessed virgin appeared to him in a vision, and enquired of him in which he desired to excel, philosophy or divinity. He chose philosophy; and the virgin assured him that he should become incomparable in that, but, as a punishment for not having chosen divinity, he should sink, before he died, into his former stupidity. ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... flower of mine affected heart, Whose sweetness doth excel All roses else a thousand times, I ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... was a great sportsman—it is my one passion—and every autumn we went away somewhere shooting or fishing, sometimes to Scotland, sometimes to Norway, once even to Russia. I am a good shot, but even in this he learnt to excel me. ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... thus God has made choice of you." He assured him that his vocation came from heaven and exhorted him to persevere. Then presenting him to Bertrand and Peter, he said: "Here is a good brother, whom God has sent us." And when he was alone with them, he told them that Giles would one day excel in sublime virtue. ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... that raises a man above the common level and distinguishes him among his fellow-beings. The term is relative. The quality may exist in any degree or measure. 'Tis only the few that excel eminently; but anyone may be said to excel who is, ever so little, superior to others, be they few or many. Three kinds of advantages go to make up one's excellence. Nature's gifts are talent, knowledge, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... When he is telling Sulpicius that it was not by being a lawyer that a man could become Consul, he goes on to praise the high dignity of his client's profession. "The greatest glory is achieved by those who excel in battle. All our empire, all our republic, is defended and made strong by them."[166] It was thus that the advocate could speak! This comes from the man who always took glory to himself in declaring that the "toga" was superior to helmet ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... that teachers who may read these pages may find running through them a strand of optimism that will give them increased faith in their own powers, a larger hope for the future of the school, and an access of zeal to press valiantly forward in their efforts to excel themselves. ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect pair and immediately commence to degenerate. The modern painters and sculptors are far better and grander than the ancient. I think we excel in fine arts as much as we do in agricultural implements. Nothing pleased me more than the painting from Holland, because they idealized and rendered holy the ordinary avocations of life. They paint cottages with sweet mothers and children; they paint homes. ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... period a child is always anxious to excel himself and attain a higher level, nearer the adult standards. He measures his growth, not only in inches, but in ability to run faster, jump farther, count higher, and so on. So long as he is stimulated by an ...
— Primary Handwork • Ella Victoria Dobbs
... notion occurs to me," said I. "What if woman should in the end not only equal but excel man in physical and mental powers, as he has her in the past, and what if she should take as mean an advantage of that superiority ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... at the song of the bard. Thus strong emotion seizes him on hearing the strife at Troy, while the Phaeacians listen with delight. Such is the contrast, hinting two very different relations to the song. But the king will divert him from his grief, and so calls for the games to show him "how much we excel others in boxing, wrestling, leaping and running." The quoit was also ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow of the flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet ahead. Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along its length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up the coil of the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight of time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great international congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Images. Epic Satire compar'd with Epic Poem, and wherein they differ: Of their Extent, Action, Unities, Episodes, and the Nature of their Morals. Of Parody: Of the Style, Figures, and Wit proper to this Sort of Poem, and the superior Talents requisite to Excel ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... My father daily witnessed with considerable anxiety my zealous and persevering exertions; and as I proceeded, he encouraged me by the most animating hopes of future prospects; he informed me that he had remarked with no small pleasure my determination to excel in every thing that I undertook; and that I set about every thing with an enthusiasm calculated to surmount all difficulties, which was, as he justly observed, the only way to attain any object, or to arrive at any degree ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... but its lesson is well worthy our serious thought. Too many people in their life as Christians, while they strive to excel in character, in conduct, and in the beautiful graces of disposition, and to do their work among men faithfully, are forgetting meanwhile the law of love which bids every follower of Christ go about doing good as the Master did. To be a Christian is far more than to be honest, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... may not become Nurseries for bringing up all poor peoples Children to Industry, and how by a Methodical Government every one may be so encouraged, that one striving to excel the rest, in very short time, the finest Linnen may be made at home upon far better terms than what comes from beyond the Seas; and whether there be not a probability, if the Engines take, that we may come to transport Linnen upon as good terms as other ...
— Proposals For Building, In Every County, A Working-Alms-House or Hospital • Richard Haines
... these the Princess Woo learned under her preceptor's guidance. She grew to be even more assertive and self-reliant, and became, also, expert in many sports in which, in that woman-despising country, only boys could hope to excel. One day, when she was about fourteen years old, the Princess Woo was missing from the Nestorian mission-house, by the Yellow River. Her troubled guardian, in much anxiety, set out to find the truant; and, finally, ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... orator, but without depth or earnestness,—whom he compares to a cup-bearer presenting a costly goblet, but without anything in it. And when it became clear that this high-priest of pretended wisdom was ignorant of the things in which he was supposed to excel, but which Augustine himself had already learned, his disappointment was so great that he lost faith both in the teacher and his doctrines. Thus this Faustus, "neither willing nor witting it," was the very man who loosened the net which had ensnared Augustine ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... nations in which the civilization of antiquity culminated stand side by side, as different in development as they were in origin identical. The points in which the Hellenes excel the Italians are more universally intelligible and reflect a more brilliant lustre; but the deep feeling in each individual that he was only a part of the community, a rare devotedness and power of self-sacrifice for the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... happy again to "excel in animation and relish of existence"; happy to have gathered so much strength and hope, that, when begins the melody of the morning birds, again shall the joy of the new dawn, with all the possible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... books; and that you should think of home when not engaged in reading. Whatever you do, don't romp together with them, for were you to meet our master, your father, it will be no joke! Although it's asserted that a scholar must strain every nerve to excel, yet it's preferable that the tasks should be somewhat fewer, as, in the first place, when one eats too much, one cannot digest it; and, in the second place, good health must also be carefully attended to. This is my view on the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... sea-coasts are inhabited by Malayans, of whom Sir James Brooke speaks in the higher terms, as regards honesty, cleanliness, &c. They understand the art of cutting, polishing, and setting their diamonds. Gold and silver filigree works they excel in; and they are otherwise ingenious, but ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... the memory of his reign. All the emperors were seized with this building craze; it was like a disease which the very throne seemed to carry from one occupant to another with growing intensity, a consuming desire to excel all predecessors by thicker and higher walls, by a more and more wonderful profusion of marbles, columns, and statues. And among all these princes there was the idea of a glorious survival, of leaving a testimony of their greatness ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... no doubt excel This, the land wherein we're doomed to dwell, As the hardy travellers proclaim; But if Nature has denied us much, Art is yet responsive to our touch, And our hearts can kindle at her flame. If the laurel will not flourish ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... witness to the number who fall victims to the temptations held out by grog-shops and saloons; and the papers, for weeks after, are crowded with accounts of accidents. Now, a yearly sum expended to keep up, and keep pure, places of amusement which hold out no temptation to vice, but which excel all vicious places in real beauty and attractiveness, would greatly lessen the sum needed to be expended on any one particular day, and would refine and prepare our people to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... OF SOUP.—Besides having an important place in the meal of which it forms a part, soup is very often an economy, for it affords the housewife a splendid opportunity to utilize many left-overs. With the French people, who excel in the art of soup making chiefly because of their clever adaptation of seasoning to foods, their pot-au-feu is a national institution and every kitchen has its stock pot. Persons who believe in the strictest food economy use a stock pot, since it permits left-overs to be utilized in ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 3 - Volume 3: Soup; Meat; Poultry and Game; Fish and Shell Fish • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... superiority of South African scouting to that of the British regulars, but it must be confessed that a good many instances might be quoted in which the colonials, though second to none in gallantry, have been defective in that very quality in which they were expected to excel. ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... parts of the city there are various sports of boys and young men, as running, hand-ball, tennis, &c.; there are besides trials of skill among the boys, in order to discover the readiness of their wit in speaking, acting, and perceiving; and such as excel receive some leaves of laurel as a reward; not to mention other things of a like nature, designed to call forth and exercise the latent talents of the young people. 5. Moreover out of the city are exhibited stage-entertainments, in which the actors represent the various graces ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... had a splendid chance. He cud devote his life to paintin' wan rib iv a fan, f'r which he got two dollars, or he cud become a cab horse. An' even in th' wan branch iv art that Westhren civvylization is supposed to excel in, they had us beat miles. They were th' gr-reatest liars in th' wurruld an' formerly ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... to be extremely curious, but to be a much better pattern for that epistolary kind of writing which is generally called love-letters than any to be found in the academy of compliments, and which we challenge all the beaus of our time to excel either in ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... from Linda, whose hard-hearted parents had her locked up in her chamber, where she remained seven months writing her grief in verses of such rare sentiment and purity of style that I doubt if Byron has anything to excel them. But finding that her love for Leon was incurable, and that the confinement was producing insanity of mind, her father thought to affect a remedy by offering Leon ten thousand dollars to quit the country. This he spurned, bidding ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... is that which maketh men excel and go beyond all men, in the account of God; it is that which beautifies a man, and prefers him above all other; "Hast thou," says God to Satan, "considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... some other species of the primates equal or excel man or advance part way between man and the brute? Why are they not now becoming human? It is plain to the sincere student that the evolution of man from the brute is only the product of the imagination of those ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... you, 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 ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... a boy, I always had an ambition to excel all the other boys. I wanted to be the best baseball player on the block—and I was, too. I could pitch three curves when I was fifteen, and I find I am the same now that I am a man grown. When ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... see it now. The motive to excel was all he needed. He had a vigorous mind, a generous heart, An innate love of goodness and of truth. But he was wayward, and he hated tasks. Such men must have an aim beyond themselves, Or oft they prove but dreamers. And with such, Woman's ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... all did their duty and each appeared anxious to excel, it is very difficult to discriminate. It is, however, only rendering them their merited due, when it is declared of Lieutenants Reily and Bury, 1st and 3d of this vessel, and whose names will be found among those of the conquerors ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... offend against the taste of a refined age, or for a mother to introduce the unsoiled soul of her child to evil, by reading straight through the successive chapters of the Bible. It has been left for Protestant piety to excel Romanists and Jews in superstition. The Church of Rome, as you know, discourages the use of the Bible by her laity, erring in the other extreme. The Jewish rabbis had a saying that no one should read the Canticles before he was ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... but that which is darker than the former, that which thou shalt understand less. Thou mayest get what thou seekest, perhaps some more satisfaction in thy own condition, but it shall plunge thee more in the issue. Thou shalt always be unsettled, and "unconstant as water, thou shalt not excel." I confess indeed, if we speak of the manifestation of one's particular interest in these promises, and of an evidence of the love of God to thee, in particular, then there must needs be something wrought by the Holy Spirit on thy soul, to draw down ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... of seemeth very strange: whereupon I coniecture the soile to be fertile, the aire to be holesome, and the whole kingdom to be at peace. MICHAEL. You haue (friend Leo) ful iudicially coniectured those three: for they do all so excel that which of the three in this kingdom be more excellent, it is not easie to discerne. And hence it is that this common opinion hath been rife among the Portugals, namely, that the kingdom of China was neuer visited with those three most heauy and sharpe scourges ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... peace, Choiseul wisely remained faithful to his own first ideas. The restoration of the navy continued, and was accompanied and furthered by a spirit of professional ambition and of desire to excel, among the officers of the navy, which has been before mentioned, and which, in the peculiar condition of the United States navy at the present day, may be commended as a model. The building of ships-of-war continued ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... in the system are shewn in other parts of this work. It is to be regretted that men should be so inattentive to this matter; their negligence is one reason why females know so little of it. Women will always be desirous to excel in such accomplishments as recommend them to the other sex; but men generally avoid even the slightest acquaintance with the affairs of the nursery, and many would reckon it an affront were they supposed to know any thing of them. Not so, however, with the kennel or the stables; a gentleman ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... fortnight was spent under most happy conditions, and all ranks had an enjoyable time. As Christmas approached, active preparations were made to excel anything we had ever had before in the way of festivities, and this was possible now that we were out of action. Quarter-Master-Sergeants, puffed out with importance, were to be seen strutting hither and thither, returning with mysterious sacks and parcels, presumably ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... Fullerton has encompassed a large amount of practical baseball instruction for boys; and, what is of greater value, he has shown the importance of manliness, sportsmanship and clean living to any boy who desires to excel in baseball or any other sport. These books are bound to sell wherever they are seen by boys or parents. Handsomely illustrated and bound. 12mo. Cloth. New and original ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... as to the direct transcription here, where the dramatist is but incidentally playing with Montaigne's idea, proceeding to put some gibes at it in the mouths of Gonzalo's rascally comrades; and it follows that Gonzalo's further phrase, "to excel the golden age," proceeds from Montaigne's previous words: "exceed all the pictures wherewith licentious poesy hath proudly embellished the golden age." The play was in all probability written in or before 1610. It remains to show that on his first reading of Florio's Montaigne, in ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... these. Nay, there are likewise degrees of followers, higher or lower, just as he whom they follow judges fit. Mighty too is the emulation amongst these followers, of each to be first in favour with his Prince; mighty also the emulation of the Princes, to excel in the number and valour of followers. This is their principal state, this their chief force, to be at all times surrounded with a huge band of chosen young men, for ornament and glory in peace, for security and defence in war. Nor is it amongst his ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... Henrietta Vinton Davis perform on various occasions, and it is my candid judgment, reached after mature deliberation, and a fair knowledge of the merits of nearly all her set who essay to excel in the histrionic art, that she has no superior in the race as a master of the profession of her choice. (John C. Dancy, Wilmington, ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various
... prudent to beat a retreat, leaving our fair and partial fandangueras to bestow their favours upon others better able to bear them. The motions of the Californian females of all classes in the dance are highly graceful. The waltz is their favourite measure, and in this they appear to excel as much as the men do in horsemanship. During the progress of the dance, the males and females improvise doggerel rhymes complimentary of the personal beauties and graces of those whom they admire, or expressive of their love and devotion, which are chanted with the music ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... I regret it, but I must say that you are talking in a much more light-headed way than usual. All that we had we brought with us, and your young brother officers, who I must say excel you in ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... of every boy who could hope to do so was to excel in athletics. This fact has much to commend it in such an educational system, for it undoubtedly kept its devotees from innumerable worse troubles and dangers. All athletics were compulsory, unless one had obtained permanent exemption from the medical officer. If one was not chosen ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... Lincoln had no apprehension of a surprise, and were busy in those sports which hardy men enjoy even amid the rougher sport of war. The Countess of Chester and her sister-in-law, with a politeness that the ladies of the court of Louis le Grand could not excel, paid a visit to the wife of the knight who had the defence of the castle. While there, at this pleasant morning call, "talking and joking" with the unsuspecting matron, as Ordericus relates, the Earl of Chester came in, "without his armor or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... seeks to avoid one inconvenient, he incurs another. But the principal point of judgement, is in discerning between the qualities of inconvenients, and not taking the bad for the good. Moreover a Prince ought to shew himself a lover of vertue, and that he honors those that excel in every Art. Afterwards ought he encourage his Citizens, whereby they may be enabled quickly to exercise their faculties as well in merchandise, and husbandry, as in any other kind of traffick, to the end that no man forbear to adorne and cultivate his possessions for fear that he be ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... lineaments, and he was, if man can judge, a devoted and exalted Christian. There was no one, in those stormy times, more illustrious as a warrior, statesman, theologian, and orator. "We can not," says a French writer, "indicate a species of merit in which he did not excel, except that he did not advance his own fortune." When but twelve years of age, a priest exhorted him to beware of the opinions ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... were playing at some game in which Jack March was supposed to excel, but when they came to look for him he could nowhere be found. At last he was discovered, high up among the branches of an old walnut-tree at the top of the field, and though his hands were unstained ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... dinner, calls the regiment back to the parade-ground. The real work of the day is over; and now come recreation and amusement. The remarkable "evolutions" of the several companies are shown, each town striving to outdo the others. Of course the Walton Light Infantry will excel all the rest; but it may be no easy matter to make every one think as we do. The newest evolution—that of the snake on training-day—certainly "brings down the house," even if it fails to carry an admission of its superiority. When this friendly rivalry is over, the sham fight proceeds. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... pray for, 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
... to consider in what branches of manufacture they are best fitted to excel, it would save much rivalship, misunderstanding, and jealousy; at the same time that it would tend greatly to increase the general aggregate wealth of mankind. It is not to industry and effort alone that mankind owe wealth, but to industry and ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... truly this will be the best reasoning for thee, that thou love justice [towards men], and piety towards God, and clemency towards thy citizens; yet do I know how thy whole conduct will be, that thou wilt not be such a one, for thou wilt excel all men in happiness, and obtain an everlasting reputation, but wilt forget piety and righteousness; and these crimes will not be concealed from God, at the conclusion of thy life, when thou wilt find that he ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... 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 ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... mistaken. Apollo's lately abdicate and fled, And good king Bacchus reigneth in his stead: He does the chaos of the head refine, And atom thoughts jump into words by wine: The inspiration's of a finer nature, As wine must needs excel Parnassus water. ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe
... their gifts to the merits of the person; which are therefore looked upon as the most honourable testimony of their conduct, and are treasured up as valuable marks of distinction. This encouragement has great influence, and makes them vie with each other in endeavours to excel in sobriety, cleanliness, meekness and industry. She told me also that the young women bred up at the schools these ladies support are so much esteemed for many miles round that it is not uncommon for young farmers, who want sober, ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... castles and stout Irish strongholds it is hard to write in such a short paper as this. Those on the Boyne, such as Trim, for strong building and extent, excel in many ways. Carlingford, Carrickfergus, and Dunluce have by their size and picturesque situations ever appealed to visitors. They are each built on rocks jutting into the sea, Dunluce on a great perpendicular ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... select Magdeburg public. At sight of which most desirable Duchess and Brother's Daughter, how Peter started up, satyr-like, clasping her in his arms, and snatching her into an inner room, with the door left ajar, and there—It is too Samoeidic for human speech! and would excel belief, were not the testimony so strong. [Pollnitz (Memoiren, ii. 95) gives Friedrich Wilhelm as voucher, "who used to relate it as from eye-and-ear witnesses."] A Duke of Mecklenburg, it would appear, who may count himself the NON-PLUS-ULTRA of husbands in that epoch;—as among Sovereign ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle
... Renaissance became general these early forms gave place to larger, more elaborate and more architectural efforts, until the cabinet became one of the most sumptuous of household adornments. It was natural that the countries which were earliest and most deeply touched by the Renaissance should excel in the designing of these noble and costly pieces of furniture. The cabinets of Italy, France and the Netherlands were especially rich and monumental. Those of Italy and Flanders are often of great magnificence and of real artistic skill, though like all ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... facilis & munita, jactatoribus tamen & falsiloquis esset impervia.[28]" ... In the mean while, I cannot but complain of it as a thing unexpected, and greatly inconsistent with your usual candour, that YOU, who are so courteous and humane to all mankind, and so remarkably the patron of those who excel in the profession of physic, or indeed in any branch of learning, should so severely reproach the favourers of this lithontriptic medicine; and not rather have commended them, for submitting a secret, communicated to them without fee or reward, to the examination of ...
— Medica Sacra - or a Commentary on on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned - in the Holy Scriptures • Richard Mead
... meetings held at the house of Arthur Davis were founded lifelong intimacies. Unpretentious in their aim, there was in these gatherings a harmony of charm and earnestness; pervading them was the true "joy of service." Above all he loved the liturgy. Here the self-taught man must excel. Homer said:— ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... all events the queen had formed a very high opinion of him—and she was a woman of much experience, having seen many men in her day. Hafrydda, though, of course, not so experienced, fully equalled her mother, if she did not excel her, in her estimate of ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... with: "Professor, I wish you'd tell me how you'd compare Cicero and Publilius. I'm of the opinion that the first was the more eloquent, but that the last moralizes more beautifully, for what can excel these lines? ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... Lieutenant Fowler or my brother might be chosen as first lieutenant to bring her out to me." He spoke of directing researches to the Fiji Islands and the South Pacific. Rarely has there been a man so keen for the most strenuous service, so unsparing of himself, so eager to excel. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... fraternity. Circumstances, however, give a singular prominence and pathos to these usual facts of artist-life. When Crawford began his professional career, sculpture, as an American pursuit, was almost as rare as painting at the time of West's advent in Rome; to excel therein was a national distinction, having a freshness and personal interest such as the votaries of older countries did not share; as the American representative of his art at Rome, even in the eyes of his comrades, and especially in the estimation of his countrymen, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... more than book-learned in it, (for it is a long time ago since I lost my grandpapa, who used to converse with me in it, and in French,) I was not scrupulous to answer in it. To have forborne, because I did not excel in what I had no opportunity to excel in, would have been false modesty, nearly bordering upon pride. Were any lady to laugh at me for not speaking well her native tongue, I would not return the smile, were she to be less perfect in mine, than I am in hers. But Lady Olivia made me a compliment ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... get a catalogue we just naturally dream that what we shall raise will not only be as good but will excel the pictures. Alas, of such stuff are dreams made! We could not do our gardening without catalogues, but they are not true to life as we find it in our garden. We never got a catalogue that showed the striped bug ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... generation of contact with world politics will bring to the fore diplomats capable of meeting Europe's best on their own ground. What Europe has learned, America can learn; what Europe has practiced, America can practice, and in the end she may excel ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... socialism, we could never get the highest endeavor out of anyone, for it would seem not worth while to do more than the average. The race would then go backward instead of lifting itself higher by the insistent desire to excel and to reap the rich ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... of Britain which is called Bolerion, excel in hospitality, and also, by their intercourse with foreign merchants, they are civilised in their mode of life. These prepare the tin, working very skilfully the earth which ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... a man whose heart and whose interests are alike engaged in a particular profession, be he physician, or inventor, or artist, and who is ambitious to excel and prosper in that profession, will be for ever alert to every hint or lesson which will make for success. Shakespeare was from his heart a playwright; he was at the same time a shrewd business man as partner in a theatre. Not only did he love his work with all the passion ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... bring the hippopotamus low, the going of the runner. I knew how to make amulets, which enable us to go without fire burning us and without the flood washing us away. No man could do this but I, and the eldest son of my body. Him has the god decreed to excel in art, and I have seen the perfections of the work of his hands in every kind of rare stone, in gold and silver, in ivory and ebony." Now since Mertisen and his son were the chief artists of their day, it is more than probable that ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, And Assyria In The Light Of Recent Discovery • L.W. King and H.R. Hall
... cannot run as far or lift as much as some of his playmates or companions. You all remember the fable of the frog who tried to make himself as big as the ox and finally burst. The idea of exercise is not to try to excel every one in what you do, but to do your best without over-exertion. If a boy has a rugged frame and well developed muscles, it is perfectly natural that he should be superior in most sports to a boy ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... wholly ideal. Besides, most young Chinese girls, whose parents are well off, are taught to read, though it is true that many content themselves with being able to read and write a few hundred words. They all learn and excel in embroidery; the little knick-knacks which hang at every Chinaman's waist-band being almost always the work of his wife or sister. Visiting between Chinese ladies is of everyday occurrence, and on certain fete-days ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... being formed, do, no doubt, tell upon the balance. For it was not long before I found myself indebted to him for the greatest benefit probably that any man, living or dead, can confer on another. In my school and college days I had been betrayed by an ambition to excel in themes and declamations into the study, admiration, and imitation of the rhetoricians. In the course of my last long vacation—the autumn of 1830—I was inspired with a new ambition, namely, to think justly about everything which ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... called land-floe, so as to avoid the pressure which would occur at its edge by the body of ice to seaward being forced against it by the fast rising gale. Smart things are done in the Navy, but I do not think any thing could excel the alacrity with which the floe was suddenly peopled by about 500 men, triangles rigged, and the long saws (called ice-saws) used for cutting the ice, were manned. A hundred songs from hoarse throats resounded through the ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... this. As between winter and spring wheat flours made by the new process and gradual reduction systems, it maybe remarked that the former contain more starch and are whiter in color, while the latter, having more gluten, excel in strength. In milling all varieties of wheat, whether winter or spring, the new processes are in every way superior to the old, and, in aiding their inception and development, the millers of Minneapolis have conferred a lasting ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... huntsman behind them, and only seven or eight horsemen between us, then it was that the strangest thing of all happened, for I, too, went mad—I, Etienne Gerard! In a moment it came upon me, this spirit of sport, this desire to excel, this hatred of the fox. Accursed animal, should he then defy us? Vile robber, his hour was come! Ah, it is a great feeling, this feeling of sport, my friends, this desire to trample the fox under the hoofs of your ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... each of whom gives freely the best of 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 faculty as a whole should be united and cooperative. Each professor, ...
— The History Of University Education In Maryland • Bernard Christian Steiner
... and good man will turn examples of all sorts to his own advantage. The good he will make his patterns, and strive to equal or excel them. The bad he will by ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... 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, thievish. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... tearful passion and called the Grand Prieur a liar, a poltroon, and a villain, at a ball, because the Grand Prieur was heard to mutter "Unless you dance better, I would you had your money again that your dancing has cost you." [229] James I. was particularly anxious to have his "Babies" excel in complicated boundings. His copy of Nuove Inventioni di Balli[230] may be seen in the British Museum, with large plates illustrating how to "gettare la gamba," that is, in the words of Chaucer, "with his legges casten to and fro."[231] ...
— English Travellers of the Renaissance • Clare Howard
... rivalry. Bad competition is personal. It works for the aggrandizement of some individual or group. It is a sort of warfare. It is inspired by a desire to "get" someone. It is wholly selfish. That is to say, its motive is not pride in the product, nor a desire to excel in service, nor yet a wholesome ambition to approach to scientific methods of production. It is moved simply by the desire to crowd out others and monopolize the market for the sake of the money returns. That being accomplished, it always substitutes ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... qualities which confer that species of superiority. They value, beyond every other acquirement, that of apparent insensibility to pain—we start, perhaps cry out, at the twinge of a tooth; in war we become the dupes of the commonest stratagem, while they can never be surprised. They see that they excel us in hunting—in endurance of pain—in the power of encountering the fatigues and perils of savage life—indeed, in every kind of knowledge which is deemed by them of value—by their standard they are our superiors. "You ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... externals, and are practically "barbarous atheists." The people are largely governed by omens; they sometimes offer sacrifices to their old-time idols, but these have little real hold on them. Sorcery has great vogue among them, and Corralat and other powerful chiefs excel in it; this is one source of their ascendancy. Combes describes their mode of life: their food (which is little besides boiled rice), their clothing, their houses and furniture; and their usages and laws regarding conduct, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... of them, Jack was beginning to show the strain the most. This was his special field, the place where he was supposed to excel, and nothing was happening. Reports coming up from the planet were discouraging; the isolation techniques they had tried to institute did not seem to be working, and the spread of the plague was accelerating. ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... Land! And, like, when fig-trees their buds are oping You know that summer is near at hand; Thus, when the chill Of your evening broaches, You feel, with thrill, That the friend approaches, To lead you homeward, where joys excel, United ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... activity. By constant attention and exertion she had considerably abated the violence of her temper, and changed the course of her habits. Her powers of pleasing were now excited, instead of her abilities to excel; and, if her talents appeared less brilliant, her character was acknowledged to be more amiable. So great an influence upon our manners and conduct have ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... that can equal our fairs has been offered to the quilters of our day. Public recognition of good work and the premiums which accompany this recognition augment the desire to excel in the art of quilt making. The keen competition engendered results in the most exact and painstaking work possible being put upon quilts that are entered for the "blue ribbon." The materials, designs, and colours chosen for these quilts are given the most careful ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... they were obliged, as March complained, to the acquisition of useless information in a degree unequalled in their experience. They came to excel in the sad knowledge of the line at which respectability distinguishes itself from shabbiness. Flattering advertisements took them to numbers of huge apartment-houses chiefly distinguishable from tenement-houses by the absence of fire-escapes on their ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells |
