"Superiority" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... study so much for a love of the truth or my own development, in these days, as to make those young men recognize my equality. I soon noticed that, after losing a few games of chess, my opponent talked less of masculine superiority. Sister Madge would occasionally rush to the defense with an emphatic "Fudge for these laws, all made by men! I'll never obey one of them. And as to the students with their impertinent talk of superiority, all they need is such a shaking up as I gave the most ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... to his fellows very well, and he did it to the best of his ability. It was, when he met a Free Kirk or Established boy, to throw a stone at him; or alternatively, if the heathen chanced to be a girl, to put out his tongue at her. This he did, not from any special sense of superiority, but for the ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... discovered his wisdom; for as the profession of a Pleader, and a Lawyer, are both of them held in great esteem, and give those who are masters of them the most extensive influence among their fellow-citizens; he acquired an undisputed superiority in the one, and improved himself as much in the other as was necessary to support the authority of the Civil Law, and promote him to the dignity of a Consul."—"This is precisely the opinion I had formed of him," said Brutus. "For, a few years ago I heard him often and very attentively at Samos, ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... rejoined Pott, laying his hand on Mr. Pickwick's knee, and looking round with a smile of intellectual superiority—'he read for metaphysics under the letter M, and for China under the letter C, and combined his ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... explained, but which, from their remote and religious antiquity, are mysteriously attractive to a reverent and inquisitive population, with whom long descent is yet the most flattering proof of superiority. Thus genealogies, and accounts of the origin of states and deities, made the first subjects of history, and inspired the Argive Acusilaus [227], and, as far as we can plausibly conjecture, the ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... now I hear her through the open window, extemporising touching melodies in her charming, cooing voice. She is thin, frail, intelligent, and lovable, all on the above diet. What better proof can be needed to establish the superiority of the Teuton than the fact that after such meals he can produce such music? Cabbage salad is a horrid invention, but I don't doubt its utility as a means of encouraging thoughtfulness; nor will I quarrel with it, since it results so poetically, any more than I quarrel ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... many a grievous disappointment, and the old man I am sure meekly accepted his son's assurance, and joined with his wife in thanking providence for granting them so great a happiness. But BULMER has different fashions of showing his superiority. I will do him the credit of saying that I do not believe him to be a Snob. He does not prostrate himself before the great, since he believes himself to be greater than they can ever be. But he knows that ordinary human nature is apt to be impressed by ...
— Punch, Volume 101, September 19, 1891 • Francis Burnand
... Japanese cities. But the friars continued their intrigues and tumults, in spite of the growing contempt shown by the Japanese. Many of the Roman clergy, moreover, assuming too great confidence in their easily gained power, began to defy the usages of the country, and to adopt airs of superiority quite at variance with the notions of the inhabitants upon that subject. At the commencement of this altered condition of affairs, the Ziogoon Nobanunga, who certainly was not unfavorably disposed to the Christians, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... rifles. For many years a rifle was condemned at first sight if it did not have the name of Hawkins[23] stamped on it, and it was not uncommon for them, when boasting of the good qualities of their riding animals, if they considered them of the maximum degree of superiority, to style them "regular Hawkins horses", thereby showing how far, in this respect, their predilections ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Fifth Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Holyhead Roads furnishes ample proof of the great superiority of steam vessels. The following extracts are taken from the evidence of Captain Rogers, the commander of one ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... higher station, apes the latter, and, sacrificing everything for appearance, becomes a poor burlesque on humanity. Even here, on the lone, wide prairie, they could not shake off the small pretense of superiority. When supper was finished—and Coombs' suppers were the worst I ever ate in Canada—the working contingent adjourned after washing dishes to the sod stable, where I asked ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... of brandy-heated Roussillon to drown the impatient conviction which possessed him that, let him triumph as he would, there would ever remain, in that fine intangible sense which his coarse nature could feel, though he could not have further defined it, a superiority in his adversary he could not conquer; a difference between him and his prey ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... I could accept the idea that we would eventually explore space, land on the moon, and go on to distant planets. I had read of the plans, and I knew our engineers and scientists would somehow find a way. It did not disturb my belief in our superiority. ...
— The Flying Saucers are Real • Donald Keyhoe
... which we need not now discuss." A pompous man easily sweeps away the suggestions of those beneath him. But though a minister may so deal with his subordinate, he cannot so deal with his king. The social force of admitted superiority by which he overturned his under-secretary is now not with him but against him. He has no longer to regard the deferential hints of an acknowledged inferior, but to answer the arguments of a superior to whom he has himself to be ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... diplomatists—the ambassadors of the German powers met with a haughty reserve instead of the kindness they had hoped for, and with sarcastic sneers in lieu of a warm reception. It was in vain for Germany thus to humble herself and to crouch in the dust. France was too well aware of her victories and superiority, and the servility of the German aristocracy only excited contempt and scorn, which the French gentlemen did not refrain from hurling into the faces of the humble solicitors. The greater the abjectness of the latter, the more overbearing the haughty demeanor of the former, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... enveloping matrix; and in hanging admiringly over it, I thought I perceived how it was that some of my old schoolfellows, who were prosecuting their education at college, were always insisting on the great superiority of the old Greek and Roman writers over the writers of our own country. I could not give them credit for much critical discernment: they were indifferent enough, some of them, to both verse and prose, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Sarajevo, may make a great entry into Constantinople, with an effect of conquering what is after all only a temporarily allied capital. The German will hope also to retain his fleet, and no peace, he will be reminded, can rob him of his hard-earned technical superiority in the air. The German air fleet of 1930 may yet be something as predominant as the British Navy of 1915, and capable of delivering a much more intimate blow. Had he not better wait for that? When such consolations as ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... acknowledge a mean reluctance to receive where I would gladly give. No, madam, it is not because I deem myself in any way an unfit wife for Mr. Farnham, that I reject, gratefully reject, his offer; but I will never enter a family where these things can be supposed to give superiority, never while one of its members rejects me because of my poverty. More than this, I have taken a solemn vow, for causes for which you are not responsible, madam, never ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... far better managed, and the love of art is a thousand times more keen; and (from this feeling, surely) how much superiority is there in French SOCIETY over our own; how much better is social happiness understood; how much more manly equality is there between Frenchman and Frenchman, than between rich and poor in our own country, with all our ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... saying much to the purpose, could talk of nothing else. The subject had been already handled in the drawing-room; it was revived in the dining-parlour. Miss Bertram's attention and opinion was evidently his chief aim; and though her deportment showed rather conscious superiority than any solicitude to oblige him, the mention of Sotherton Court, and the ideas attached to it, gave her a feeling of complacency, which prevented ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... exclusively used at all the Photographic Establishments.—The superiority of this preparation is now universally acknowledged. Testimonials from the best Photographers and principal scientific men of the day, warrant the assertion, that hitherto no preparation has been discovered which produces uniformly such perfect ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 219, January 7, 1854 • Various
... princess; and this the region of her special dominion. The wittiest and handsomest, she deserved to reign in such a place, by right of merit and by general election. Clive felt her superiority, and his own shortcomings: he came up to her as to a superior person. Perhaps she was not sorry to let him see how she ordered away grandees and splendid Bustingtons, informing them, with a superb manner, that she wished to speak to her cousin—that handsome young ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... patient exploration of the harmas, one tuft of thyme after another, does not give me a single worm. My rivals in this search are finding their game at every moment; I cannot find it even once. Yet one more reason for bowing to the superiority of the insect in the management of her affairs. My band of schoolboys get to work in the surrounding fields. Nothing, always nothing! I in my turn explore the outer world; and for ten days the pursuit of a caterpillar torments me till I lose my power ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... When I say 'hermit,' I mean 'recluse.' With all the will to be a social success and identify myself with the welfare of the place in which I dwell, my powers are circumscribed. Do not think I put myself above the people, or pretend any intellectual superiority, or any nonsense of that sort. No, it is merely a question of time and energy. My antiquarian work demands both, and so I am deprived by duty from mixing in the social life as much as I wish. This is not, perhaps, ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... good soul," said Francis with the old easy superiority which he had always assumed to her, "will you just hold your tongue, and let me tell my own tale? You have done your best for me, but you know I always told you I was not to be trusted to lie about it if anybody appealed to me to evidence. I really have not the strength to keep it up. I want ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... moral character of their lives, we shall find that the best art is the work of good, but of not distinctively religious men, who, at least, are conscious of no inspiration, and often so unconscious of their superiority to others, that one of the greatest of them, Reynolds, deceived by his modesty, has asserted that "all things are ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... that the argument just used is but negative: it does not positively combat the superiority claimed for the Greek organization; that superiority may be all that it is described to be; but it is submitted that perhaps the manifestation of this advantage was not made on a sufficient breadth ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... a plant is not regarded as acquiring varietal status until it becomes distinctive among seedlings, because of superiority of product, unusual history, or other similar reason. Few tree varieties are recognized as such until after having been propagated by at least one asexual method, such as budding, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... teeth, the wooden leg, the trepanned skull, the silver wind-pipe—a creature that is mended and patched all over from top to bottom. If he can't get renewals of his bric-a-brac in the next world what will he look like? He has just that one stupendous superiority—his imagination, his intellect. It makes him supreme—the higher animals can't match him there. It's ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... and silent, and gazed with cynical superiority at the easel. "Nuts"—it was Barney Palmer who had thus lightly rechristened the painter when he had set up his studio in the attic above the pawnshop six months before—Nuts was transferring the seamy, cunning face of her father, "Old Jimmie" ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... pocket for a card and scribbled an address across its back. A trace of good-natured familiarity—the first hint of superiority that had marked his manner—accompanied his gesture when he extended it in one hand. It savored of the harmless humoring ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... before, to get on with it. I suppose there is a Screw loose in me on that point, seeing what all thinking People think of it. I am sure I have honestly tried. As to Portia, I still think she ought not to have proved her 'Superiority' by withholding that simple Secret on which her Husband's Peace and his Friend's Life depended. Your final phrase about her 'sinking into perfection' ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... to Tiddy's desertion with her usual note of indolent amusement—it did not occur to Joy till years later that Gail might occasionally pretend a superiority to such things as annoy other girls—and summoned another man from the city for week-ends. Tiddy was indigenous to the soil. This, as Clarence, with his amiable superiority, said, was so much to the good, for when you come to amateur theatricals every man is a man. Clarence was working ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer
... progress in morals do not bear testimony to masculine superiority as builder of the higher humanity. A man has elaborated "The New Education," but he allowed, without stint, that the moral elevation aimed at cannot be achieved except by the equal opportunity and co-operation ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... talent of silver, and fifty-two minas, besides eleven staters; a statement not consistent with the generally received account of his poverty. And at that time, Lysander, being in fact of greater power than any Greek before, was yet thought to show a pride, and to affect a superiority greater even than his power warranted. He was the first, as Duris says in his history, among the Greeks, to whom the cities reared altars as to a god, and sacrificed; to him were songs of triumph first sung, the beginning of one of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... with the world, which sooner or later tells a man the truth about himself, however unwelcome, might dissipate the illusion, gained from his mother's idolatry, that in some indefinite way he was remarkable in himself, and that he was destined to great things from a vague and innate superiority, which it had never ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... give you no other answer; and that, and no other, is the way of the world. You are an obstinate man, Aune! You are opposing me, not because you cannot do otherwise, but because you will not exhibit 'the superiority of machinery over ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... though seldom recognised until they see it far behind them—an epoch of life more brilliant and full of triumph than any previous one, or than any which could hereafter be. He stood, at this moment, on the very proudest eminence of superiority, to which the gifts or intellect, rich lore, prevailing eloquence, and a reputation of whitest sanctity, could exalt a clergyman in New England's earliest days, when the professional character was of itself a lofty pedestal. Such was the position which ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... religious to the point of superstition, yet they did not invoke the terrors of theology to enforce the lesson of virtue. Plato does this even in the very work, the professed object of which is to prove the intrinsic superiority of justice to injustice. But Chrysippus protested against Plato's procedure on this point, declaring that the talk about punishment by the gods was mere 'bugaboo'. By the Stoics indeed, no less than by the Epicureans, fear of the gods was discarded from philosophy. The Epicurean gods took ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... his attention to be directed to the immeasurable superiority of this glorious verse: the high poetic animation, the eagles' visits, the lovely looks of female beauty, the exhilarating gladness and joy affecting the beholder, all manifest the genius of the master bard. I shall receive it as a favour if any of your correspondents will furnish a complete ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 208, October 22, 1853 • Various
... time composers and musicians had no higher standing. Mozart feels the intolerableness of his position and protests against it on every opportunity; he is conscious of his worth and intellectual superiority. When he endures the grossest indignities from his tormentor, Archbishop Hieronymus, it is for the sake of his father whom he would save from annoyance. In all things else he follows the example of his father, but in the matter of self-respect he admonishes and encourages his parent. ...
— Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words • Friedrich Kerst and Henry Edward Krehbiel
... institutions of Ireland, that it was easier to find ten teachers for Latin and Greek, than one for the English language, though they proposed double the salary to the latter? Who can assure us that the Greek orators acquired their superiority by their acquaintance with foreign languages; or, is it not obvious, on the other hand, that they learned ideas and expressed them in their mother tongue?"—DR. SPURZHEIM: Treatise ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... had, shortly before, taken the Forest towns, and, supported by the Palatine of Birkenfeld, who had liberated the Lower Palatinate and beaten the Duke of Lorraine out of the field, had once more given the superiority to the Swedish arms in that quarter. He was now forced to retire before the superior numbers of the enemy; but Horn and Birkenfeld quickly advanced to his support, and the Imperialists, after a brief triumph, were again expelled from Alsace. The severity of the autumn, in which this hapless retreat ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... North-eastern States, there opposed to them, were far below them in both requirements. The superior excellence of the latter in arms, equipment, and perhaps discipline, was more than compensated to the former by their greater familiarity with the arms they carried and their superiority of physique and endurance. Any advantage of numbers, it was argued, was made up by the fact of the invading army being forced to fight on the ground chosen by the invaded; and in the excellence of her tacticians, rather more ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... Inexperienced instructors could be employed for less than half the compensation of the experts I now employ—but these things could be sacrificed only at the expense of results. For many years the superiority of the Bogue Institute faculty has been nationally recognized and this reputation we are today maintaining—and ...
— Stammering, Its Cause and Cure • Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
... and the patriarchal system is not yet wholly dead. The business of the man was to work and fight for his wife and children, just as to fight and hunt for his family were the occupations of the American Indian. In return, he received absolute obedience and abject acknowledgment of his superiority. The government-fed Indian and the Roman father of today do very little fighting, working, or hunting, but in their several ways they still claim much of the same slavish obedience as in old times. One is inclined to wonder whether nowadays the independence ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... himself a graduate of an English university, had made his ways to these western wilds with a fair amount of classical learning, with thorough methods of study, and as it afterwards turned out, Cooper tells us, with another man's wife. This did not, however, prevent him from insisting upon the immense superiority of the mother-country in morals as well as manners. A man of ability and marked character, he clearly exerted over the impressionable mind of his pupil a greater influence than the latter ever realized. He was in many respects, indeed, a typical Englishman of the educated class ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... or else to disperse his army among the various cities of the kingdom, and so to await the Romans, who, being once entered into his country, could not be driven out without much slaughter and bloodshed. It was urged by his friends that he had a great numerical superiority, and that the troops would fight desperately in defence of their wives and families, especially if their king took the command and shared their danger. He pitched his camp and prepared for battle, viewed the ground, and arranged the commands, intending to set upon ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... the existence of God, was what the case required. And when, as is very frequently the case, they address the popular idolaters, it is a negative argument to show the unworthiness of idol-worship, and the superiority of their own doctrine, of which they naturally make use, and not a theistic argument which would have no significance to those ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole
... sentenced to death, as the merest commoner—the form of trial, though, always exhibited respect for illustrious names, which was most gratifying to the people. The fact was, at that time people believed in social superiority, had faith in their God, king and nobles, and though they demanded that their nobles should be punished, did not expect them to die like common people; the difference was the difference between the rope and the sabre. That very difference, however, between the two deaths—the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... Gregory VII at Canossa [Sidenote: 1077] and ending in the Concordat of 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 ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... contracted (putting it only at that, at its being by the new lights and fashions so unpardonably vulgar): he took this from her without turning, as she might have said, a hair; except just to indicate, with his new superiority, that he felt the distinguished appeal and notably the pathos of it. He still took it from her that she hoped nothing, as it were, from any other alibi—the people to drag into court being too many and too scattered; but that, ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... common run of youths, otherwise the above-mentioned men, so much older than me and higher in academical position, would never have allowed me to associate with them. Certainly I was not aware of any such superiority, and I remember one of my sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work with my beetles, saying that I should some day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... yield to your better judgment—I think Iago was intended for the hero of the play. He is the mainspring of the whole plot; he pulls all the wires; and, to use an elegant expression of your own, he twists them all round his thumb. Critically, if superiority in mere intellect and strong self-will, or even success in the object he designs, constitute a hero, the clear-witted, audacious, subtle Ancient has entirely the upper hand of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... shells from the famous 75's upon the enemy in torrents. This barrage was for the purpose of breaking up the morale of the Germans. We were counter-barraged by the Huns, and for a time they made it hot for us. But our superiority began to show after about an hour's firing. The men in the Flash Division worked hard to give our gunners the correct location of the German batteries. We worked hard and fast and the accuracy of our effort was shown by the silencing of the German guns. ...
— In the Flash Ranging Service - Observations of an American Soldier During His Service - With the A.E.F. in France • Edward Alva Trueblood
... with a little shout of anger and slowed up her mount with a sharp pull on the reins. It needed only a word from Pierre and his mare drew down to a hand-gallop, twisting her head a little toward the black as if she called for some recognition of her superiority. ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... and children, or one who is devoted to sport and gambling, and who comes to his wife only when he likes. Of all the lovers of a girl he only is her true husband who possesses the qualities that are liked by her, and such a husband only enjoys real superiority over her, because he is the ...
— The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana - Translated From The Sanscrit In Seven Parts With Preface, - Introduction and Concluding Remarks • Vatsyayana
... decided by resorting to means which are dishonorable, to say the least of them, than by fair and open trials of strength. The discomfiture of the French, in this instance, was most assuredly owing to the cunning exercised by their enemies, and not, as stated, to their superiority of skill or power: they were not permitted to try either, but were attacked when unprepared, mercilessly robbed, and slaughtered. And this was a victory. A victory over people who were not allowed ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... men saluted each other, it being noticeable that Caballuco performed his civilities with an expression of haughtiness and superiority that revealed, at the very least, a consciousness of great importance, and of a high standing in the district. When the arrogant horseman rode aside to stop and talk for a moment with two Civil Guards who passed them on the road, the traveller ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... the colour of bracken after frost; his eyes grey, with the appealing look of the shortsighted, his smile shy yet confident, as if he knew lots of things she had never dreamed of, and yet wouldn't for the world have had her feel his superiority. But she did feel it, and liked the feeling; for it was new to her. Poor and ignorant as she was, and knew herself to be—humblest of the humble even in North Dormer, where to come from the Mountain was the worst disgrace—yet in her narrow world she had always ruled. ...
— Summer • Edith Wharton
... have felt at the swiftness of the horses, and the goodness of the roads. He was a man who had seen something of {35} the world, for he had lived five-and-thirty years, thirteen of which had elapsed since he began his travels. As a foreigner he was under no temptation to exaggerate the superiority of English travelling, especially to an extent incomprehensible by his countrymen; and, in short, I cannot imagine any ground for suspecting mistake or untruth of ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.11.17 • Various
... village will be the father, and mother, sister and nieces ranked as ladies, when many other better women are pounding rice! For if the Indian is insolent and intolerable with but little power, what will he be with so much superiority! And if the wedge from the same log [303] is so powerful, what will it be if driven by so great authority! What plague of locusts can be compared to the destruction that they would cause in the villages? [304] What respect will the Indians have for him, seeing that he is of their color ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... strength, in your own favour, and that you are not likely to be taken up for knocking another person down. It is very true that I, individually, never shun this kind of discussion, whatever may be the strength and pretensions of my opponent; but then, I enjoy a consciousness of superiority over the whole world, which you, perhaps, may not feel, and which might, in some cases, mislead you. I think, however, that a supreme contempt for all but yourselves is a very proper sentiment to entertain; and, from what I observe of the conduct of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... her to assume the part of an elegant young lady, equipped for society with charming manners, a fastidious taste and indifferent ease. We occasionally laughed at her airs, but inwardly admired her superb assumptions of careless superiority: had she become timid, docile, admiring toward us, I dare say her reign would not have lasted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... was on his feet, and a look of craft and fear and ugly meaning was in his face. Morally he was a coward, physically he was a coward, but he had in his pocket a weapon which gave him a feeling of superiority in the situation; and after a night of extreme self- indulgence he was in a state of irritation of the nerves which gave him what the searchers after excuses for ungoverned instincts and acts call "brain-storms." He ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... had wit enough to perceive that Conrad was making a fool of him; but the peasants, though there were some things that puzzled them, swallowed all these nonsensical stories. Conrad exulted in his superiority, and went on: "Look you man, if there were no conjurers of this kind, how would all the contraband goods get in, which we find in every part of the world? and this is the reason why the preventive service can do so ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... that thou lookest so closely at yonder shining world?" demanded Il Maledetto, with the superiority that the mariner afloat is wont successfully to assume over the unhappy wight of a landsman, who is very liable to admit his own impotency on the novel and dangerous element:—"the astrologer himself would ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... two things: First, the superiority of the Korean mind and character to that of the Japanese. This is one of the causes of the extreme frightfulness pursued by the Japanese. They instinctively feel the superiority of their captives. It is not ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... the store, and standing around it, at a distance from the assemblage of the common people, suitably typifying their social superiority, was a group of the magnates of Stockbridge, in the stately dress of gentlemen of the olden time, their three-cornered hats resting upon powdered wigs, and long silk hose revealing the goodly proportions ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... are all explained and illustrated by it, in perfect accordance with the vast mass of facts which the researches of modern naturalists have brought together, and, it is believed, not materially opposed to any of them. It also claims a superiority over previous hypotheses, on the ground that it not merely explains, but necessitates what exists. Granted the law, and many of the most important facts in Nature could not have been otherwise, but are almost as necessary deductions from it, as are the elliptic orbits of the planets ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the Conqueror, Napoleon, and other commanding minds, who obtained a great ascendancy over masses of men in their maturer years, evinced his dawning superiority at a very early period of his boyhood. He took the lead of his playmates in their sports, and made them submit to his regulations and decisions. Not only did the peasants' boys in the little hamlet where his reputed father lived thus yield the precedence to him, but sometimes, ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... his way clear at the moment to any fitting rejoinder to this easy assumption, on Alessandro's part, of the equal superiority of Indians and Mexicans in the sheep-shearing art; so, much vexed, with another "Humph!" he walked away; walked away so fast, that he lost the sight of a smile on Alessandro's face, which would have vexed ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... now learned the superiority of the Long Knife, as they call the Virginians, by experience; being outgeneralled in almost every battle. Our affairs began to wear a new aspect, and the enemy, not daring to venture on open war, practised secret mischief ...
— The Adventures of Daniel Boone: the Kentucky rifleman • Uncle Philip
... there was no woman's work in the whole Louisiana Purchase Exposition more deserving or of higher grade than the needlework in that village exhibit. Enough can not be said of these little workers. The present age is one of superiority, in which women not only show their ability, but each year they are granted more, and more widespread becomes their ability to grasp all vocations ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... record.[152] If it became an advantage in life to a man to possess good ancestors, and to be himself a good specimen of humanity in mind, character, and physique, we may be sure that those who are above the average in these matters will be glad to make use of that superiority. Insurance offices already make an inquisition into these matters, to which no one objects, because a man only submits to it for his own advantage; while for military and some other services similar inquiries are compulsory. Eugenic certificates, according to Galton's ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... numerous than I had expected: in the event of anything happening to one of the three our return to the main party might be considerably impeded, if not altogether prevented; and although, from the superiority of our weapons over theirs, I entertained but little doubt as to the issue of any contest we might be forced into, the calls of humanity as well is of personal interest warned me to do my utmost to avoid ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... neighbour; on the other side an extra strip of garden. And, having an end house, she enjoyed a kind of aristocracy among the other women of the "between" houses, because her rent was five shillings and sixpence instead of five shillings a week. But this superiority in station was not ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... and, as she had often said—"Much as you are endeared to me, I cannot waver between you and my mother!" so she had obeyed, without one farewell word to him. Confess, Rodin was a more dextrous man than his late master! In the pages that ensue farther proofs of his superiority in baseness and satanic heartlessness will not ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... they have thin, rather long lips and deep rounded chins; but it is the fine upward curve of the nostrils and the fall of the eyelids which most surely mark them. Their glances and their faint smiles are beneficent, yet with a subtle shade of half-malicious superiority. When they look at you from under those apparently fatigued eyelids, you feel that they have an inward and concealed existence far beyond the ordinary—that they are aware of many things which you can never know. It is as though their souls, ...
— Tales of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... had first seen her. She was standing there, by that mirror, when their eyes first met in a sudden instinctive sympathy. She herself had remembered and confessed it. He recalled the pleased yet conscious, girlish superiority with which she had received the adulation of her friends; his memory of her was broad enough now even to identify Milly, as it repeopled the ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... and they were split up into the usual hostile factions of north against south. North, of course, commenced the conversation with Paris, Paris, and again PAR-RRI; the southerners every now and then throwing in a doubt of the universal superiority of the metropolis over the known world. One disputant stood out for Marseilles, another broke a lance for Bordeaux, and the war of words waxed so fierce that I began to tremble for the consequences. One young man ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... embarrassed and annoyed—there was something in the girl's quiet demeanour that suggested a certain intellectual superiority to himself. He hummed and hawed, lurking various ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... to-night,' said Mary Matchwell, with a terrible mildness, as they drove away, still glancing back upon it, with her peculiar smile; and then she leaned back, with a sneer of superiority on her pallid features, and the dismal fatigue of the spirit that rests not, looked savagely out from the deep, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... means?" exclaimed Audrey with scornful superiority over the old spinster. "Confined to barracks. Father says I'm not to go beyond the grounds for a month. And ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... produced upon the King of Brobdingnag by Gulliver's relation expressed the widespread sense of evil which existed in Swift's day, which tinctured literature with misanthropy, and made Rousseau at a later time argue the superiority of the savage man over his civilized, but corrupt and ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... significance is the fact that there seems to have been more uniformity of effort and style in the first secular drama, doubtless owing to its great superiority as a piece of literary art. That sacred plays were seldom written by men of literary rank and ability we have already noted. That they were long drawn out, cumbersome, disjointed and quite without dramatic design has also been indicated. Their real significance ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... peace without Adrianople!" was the cry of every Bulgar. Its possession became a national fetish, no less than naval superiority to the British. Adrianople stood for the real territorial object of the war. It must be the center of any future line of defense against the Turk. Practically its siege was set, once there was stalemate at Tchatalja. With no hope of beating ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... one which shared the fate of Drake's in Edinburgh, is The Superiority and Direct Dominion of the Imperial Crown of England over the Crown and Kingdom of Scotland, the true Foundation of a compleat Union reasserted; 4to. London, 1705. This had appeared the year before, but was reproduced to answer the objections to it from the other side. It was written ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various
... law; and, as a preliminary indispensable, he now proceeds to give a few definitions of the principal matters contained in that science, which bear a different meaning from what they would in ordinary language. The admiring neophyte will perceive with delight the vast superiority apparent in all cases of "matters of law," or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... be armed with the best steel hoes, with factory-made helves of ash, light and slightly flexible. The superiority of this hoe—usually called the "goose-neck hoe" in Virginia—over the old style of weeding hoe, with the heavy and stiff home-made helve, cannot be estimated, except by those who have tried both. The same ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... and gave her a look of being—as indeed she was—too gentle to dispute, or even to argue, with anybody, least of all with Fred, who was fifteen, and three years her elder, and always took a tone of great superiority toward his ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... called a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle class—serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age and, add a distinction to grey hairs. But their superiority is founded more deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the march of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they have battled through the equinox of life; ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Vivian adhered to his friend's advice, and he proudly felt the superiority of principle and character. But, alas! there was one defence that his patriotism wanted—economy. Whilst he was thus active in the public cause, and exulting in his disinterestedness, his private affairs were getting into terrible ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... would be hard to tell; but probably grief for, and indignation at, her son, were uppermost in her mind. She had quite determined upon her course. None could better carry that high, neutral look of social superiority ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to me very remarkable was, that Bonaparte, notwithstanding his incontestable superiority, studied to depreciate the reputations of his military commanders, and to throw on their shoulders faults which he had committed himself. It is notorious that complaints and remonstrances, as energetic as they were well founded, were frequently addressed to General ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... exacting position on the Times, neither did he spare himself in extracting from life all the honey of comedy there was in it. His salary did not begin to keep pace with his tastes and his pleasures. But he faced debts with the calm superiority of a genius to whom the world owed and was willing to pay ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... not inspire confidence, by the smile that would like to express goodness. The finely cut underlip that rises from the strongly marked hollow over the chin ought to sharpen with a dash of contempt the conscious superiority that lies upon his broad, magnificent forehead. His smile is in strong contrast with the cold gaze of the large open eyes; a gaze that hesitates not, but without mercy verifies a judgment fixed in advance, that gives ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... mate wanted to try it, but I wouldn't resign the gun to him. In extreme emergencies, you know, an officer loses his superiority; he becomes a mere man, like the rest. Every time I tickled the brute with a bullet he would come charging aft, but never stopped still when within easy range. Not seeing anyone, he would wheel and go back to his duty at the forward house. To tell ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... and Africa (which, in respect to Asia, may be called western countries) were wild and savage long after arts and politeness of manners were in great perfection in China and the Indies." The Talmudists make the same allusions to the superiority of the east. Thus, Rabbi Bechai says, "Adam was created with his face towards the east that he might behold the light and the rising sun, whence the east was to him the anterior part of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... too young to think of men at all," answered Annis, reprovingly, and with all the conscious superiority of age. "Nor do you know enough as yet ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... enable her to do this," said Monteath. "This is the secret of her superiority, is it not? Without this her trials would have produced ...
— Principle and Practice - The Orphan Family • Harriet Martineau
... The superiority of the Navajo to the Pueblo work results not only from a constant advance of the weaver's art among the former, but from a constant deterioration of it among the latter. The chief cause of this deterioration is that the Pueblos find it more remunerative to buy, at least the finer serapes, ...
— Navajo weavers • Washington Matthews
... wisdom, the time and the place for the election. It manifestly contemplated their retreat from the turbulent streets of Rome to some place where their deliberations would not be overborne, and the predominant French interest would maintain its superiority. On the other hand there were serious and not groundless apprehensions that the fierce Breton and Gascon bands, at the command of the French cardinals, might dictate to the conclave. The Romans not only armed their civic troops, but sent to Tivoli, Velletri, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Johnson, who was well along in the twenties at least, and still a spinster, prided herself on her powers of conquest, despite the fact that she had no husband to show for it. So, now, she spoke with an air of languid superiority: ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... merit, vast lordly power and thus effect the creation of the world, and so on. On this supposition the texts about that which constitutes the cause of the world and the inward Self of the world must also be understood to refer to some such soul which, owing to superiority of merit, has become all-knowing and all-powerful. A so- called highest Self, different from the individual souls, does not therefore exist. Where the texts speak of that which is neither coarse nor fine nor short, &c., they only mean to characterise the individual soul; and those texts also ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... laudable is really nothing, and is only an empty circumstance set off with an unmeaning sound, can nevertheless maintain that a wise man is always happy, what, think you, may be done by the Socratic and Platonic philosophers? Some of these allow such superiority to the goods of the mind as quite to eclipse what concerns the body and all external circumstances. But others do not admit these to be goods; they make everything depend on the mind: whose disputes Carneades ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... different—so natural, so free from that atrocious habit of never being able to disassociate self from the little, graceful courtesies young men show women. He's wholesome, free from ego, from that intolerable air of proprietorship, of masculine superiority and cocksureness that seems so inseparable from the young men ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... a treaty with all the other neutral powers, whose Ministers may with equal propriety demand the perquisites you speak of. Therefore, let it be understood, that as the United States, or their servants, are above receiving perquisites or presents, so they have not the presumption to assume such superiority over those with whom they treat as to ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... own wife, he knew, might have been managed thus with ease, and so, probably, might his sister, and his mother, and his cousin, for in love matters, or what are so called, women in general are, readily duped. He discerned not the superiority of your understanding to tricks so shallow and impertinent, nor the firmness of your mind in maintaining its own independence. No doubt but he was amply to have been rewarded for his assistance, and probably had you this morning been propitious, the Baronet in return was to have ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and then almost as straight upon its fore ones; but its rider held on like a burr. Then the mustang raced wildly forwards a few paces, then as wildly back, and then stood still and trembled violently. But this was only a brief lull in the storm, so Dick saw that the time was now come to assert the superiority of his race. ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... to learn the Slovene language he was there and then transferred to Transylvania or the Slovak country or some other province where he had to teach his pupils in the Magyar which they did not know. He was supposed to make the children feel the vast superiority of all things Magyar, so that they should be ashamed to walk with their own fathers in the streets and speak another tongue. We are told occasionally in the Morning Post that consideration should be ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... had been unconsciously influenced towards good by the presence of his mother, and latterly by his little sister Rose. He, in his turn, had gained a salutary influence among the street boys, who looked up to him as a leader, though that leadership was gained in the first place by his physical superiority and ...
— Rufus and Rose - The Fortunes of Rough and Ready • Horatio Alger, Jr
... to breed. It was the mere repetition of nature through the working of an automatic law. No such obscure fate, he determined, should overtake, obliterate, him. Yet it had involved his mother, a person of the first superiority. A slight chill, as if a breath of imminent winter had touched him, communicated itself to ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... with folded arms regarding the scene with the impersonal amusement with which she would have sat through a staged comedy. No sense of obligation toward her host and hostess impelled her to do her share toward lessening the strain, and Andy P. Symes felt a growing irritation at the faint smile of superiority upon her face. She was the one person present who might have helped him ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... gentleman, but he was tall, robust, broad-shouldered, with eagle-like beak, and keen gray eyes that were fitting accompaniments to so distinguished a feature. His dress was rather careless, but his air and the expression of his face evinced a mixture of eccentricity and a sense of superiority. At least, it had evinced this until the singing of Tara. Then he broke down. First he bowed his head down, resting his forehead upon his hands, which were supported by his cane, and several deep-drawn sighs escaped him. Then he raised his ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... appearance of forbearance towards the frivolities of youth, readiness to forego (from amiability) any share in the conversation, insight into the rapports of others (especially male and female rapports), and general superiority to human weakness, had endeavoured to express all these things by laying down her knitting, folding her hands on her circumference, and looking as if she knew and could speak if she chose. But if you do this, even the maintenance of an attentive ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... to a point of morals on which the American conscience is apt to suffer more or less anguish if it offends. So far as I know they do not think it wrong to take money won at any game; but possibly their depravity in this matter rather comforted us than offended. At any rate, I am sure of the superiority of our own morals in visiting Monte Carlo after we left Genoa. If we did not look forward with our Englishman's complacency to the nice little church there, we certainly did not mean to risk our money at the tables of Roulette, nor ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... disobeyed, written in letters of fire across the whole vault of heaven? All one can say is, that her time was not come. Besides, she looked on Major Campbell as a being utterly superior to herself; and that very superiority, while it allowed her to be as familiar with him as she chose, excused her in her own eyes from opening to him her real heart. She could safely jest with him, let him pet her, play at being his daughter, while ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... stomach, with the winding alimentary canal, is in the centre of the body; the heart and liver are placed in the same relation to it as in the Acephala; and though the so-called foot would seem to be a new feature, it is but a muscular expansion of the ventral side of the body. There is an evident superiority in this class over the preceding one, in the greater prominence of the anterior extremity, where there are two or more feelers, with which eyes more or less developed are connected; and though there is nothing that can be properly called ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... pounds yearly, formerly sent over seas to fetch Lace from Flanders.' At this time the lace trade flourished greatly, although there was always a difficulty in competing with Belgium, because of the superiority of its silky flax, finer than any spun in England. Later the workers fell on evil days, for during the American War there was little money to spend on luxuries; and, besides, about this time the fashion of wearing much lace came to an end. In 1816 the introduction of 'machine ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... was of old time on terms of intimacy with the house of Baronet. It was a family with a proud lineage, wealth, and culture to its credit. Rachel had an inherited sense of superiority. Too much staying between the White Mountains and the Atlantic Ocean is narrowing to the mental scope. The West to her was but a wilderness whereto the best things of life never found their way. She took everything in Massachusetts as hers by due right, much more did it seem ...
— The Price of the Prairie - A Story of Kansas • Margaret Hill McCarter
... its being perfectly sincere. Her own children were but half educated, and very deficient in acquired manner; and they too looked with awe on Mr. Phillips's English sister, who was so self-possessed and so fashionably dressed. To a person less conscious of her own superiority, Mrs. Ballantyne's profuse apologies for everything and everybody would have been rather painful; but Harriett received them graciously, and told Dr. Grant that she felt quite delighted with this first specimen of bush hospitality, and ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... effort to abolish it, trial by battle was made illegal in 1833, the last case recorded as being so decided occurring in 1835. Out of the trial by witnesses has evolved our modern trial by jury, at first limited to certain unimportant cases, then having its sphere extended as its superiority became more evident, until finally it superseded all other forms and to-day is the accepted mode of settling even questions ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... the organization unique, his was the only wholly stolid and stupid one. Club tradition declared that he had been admitted solely for the beneficent purpose of keeping the more egotistic members in a permanent and pleasing glow of superiority. He was very rich, but otherwise quite harmless. In an access of unappreciated cynicism, Average Jones had once suggested to him, as a device for his newly acquired coat-of-arms, "Rocks et ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... find you a very silly scientist," she replied, with several implications of superiority in both ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... to Frank an insufficient supply of food for two people who are to be on the sea for the whole day. He saw, besides, an opportunity of asserting once for all his position of superiority. He made up his mind to tip Priscilla. He fumbled in his ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham |
