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Superiority   Listen
noun
Superiority  n.  The quality, state, or condition of being superior; as, superiority of rank; superiority in merit.
Synonyms: Preeminence; excellence; predominancy; prevalence; ascendency; odds; advantage.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Superiority" Quotes from Famous Books



... dignity—all are equally subjects of these. Man is ungrown. All his fruit is green. If he must stand by what he is, how surely must he be given over to weakness, to abuse, to oppressions. The weak are the natural prey to the strong, and superiority is a ...
— Conflict of Northern and Southern Theories of Man and Society - Great Speech, Delivered in New York City • Henry Ward Beecher

... them as Irishmen and Catholics, is completely at variance with that of those opposed to them, whom, go where they will, they encounter, and always in the same form. In Ireland, they are at liberty, apparently, to do the same by reason of their superiority in point of numbers; the result of the late Galway elections proves what a farce is this show of liberty, and even the members whom they would and do sometimes elect possess a very feeble influence, or none, in what is called the Imperial Parliament. ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud

... they were, and the more you could reverence their virtue the happier you would be. On the contrary, if you were condemned to live among a multitude of idiots, dumb, distorted and malicious, you would not be happy in the constant sense of your own superiority. Thus all real joy and power of progress in humanity depend on finding something to reverence; and all the baseness and misery of humanity begin in a habit of disdain. Now, by general misgovernment, I repeat, we have created ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... himself was the first to propose play—deep play—double stakes; while Lord Etherington, on the other hand, often proposed to diminish their game, or to break off entirely; but it was always with an affectation of superiority which only stimulated Mowbray to farther and more desperate risks; and, at last, when Mowbray became his debtor to an overwhelming amount, (his circumstances considered,) the Earl threw down the cards, and declared he should be too late for Lady Penelope's tea-party, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... on six pence a day and earn it. I have found few hyper-sensitives among the poor. Poverty is a fine cure for most cases, though there are those who cling to their pride of birth of education, or God knows what of insane belief in their superiority over ordinary mortals, and make that the occasion, or cause, of the innumerable and fretting ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... with him. After casting a glance at the bronzes, which were not shown to advantage from the light being below them, he exclaimed: "Whoever wanted to injure this man has done him a great service; for the comparison of these admirable statues demonstrates the immeasurable superiority of his work in beauty and in art. Benvenuto deserves to be made much of, for his performances do not merely rival, but surpass the antique." In reply to this, Madame d'Etampes observed that my Jupiter would not make anything like so fine a show by daylight; besides, one ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini

... to get a living, nobody could imagine. That they did jog along somehow, was evident; but they appeared to be generally as void of bustle as were their lazy sign-boards, basking in the sun on a summer's day. The best in the place, one with rather more pretension to superiority than the rest, was the Golden Fleece. It was situated at the entrance to Deerham, not far from the railway station; not far either from Deerham Court; in fact, between Deerham ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... mind and feelings so utterly uncultivated as those of the young Stone Indian. Neither could she live so much in the society of the white stranger, and his two chosen companions, without imbibing something of their intelligence, and becoming sensible of their superiority of mind to all others with whom she had ever associated: and she grew more and more attached to them, and learnt to regret less the friends and companions among whom her youth ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb

... Whereupon that clear-throated competitor, sustained by justifiable self-confidence and a new-laid egg which he had sucked scarcely a minute before he made his bow to their reverences, sings out with such richness and compass that all the auditors recognize his great superiority. ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... exclusive in their choice than men, and that among savages they prefer courage and bodily strength. At the present day, owing to change of customs, cultured and intelligent women are, on the contrary, much less attracted by man's physical strength than by his intellectual superiority or genius. This gives us a very important indication of the selection we desire, and confirms the necessity of instructing women in sexual matters. I foresee that the enlightened and intelligent women are those ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... Chinee has a conscience; but if he has, neither Ah Sin nor Ah Jim experienced any inconvenience from its possession. Neither they nor Bill perhaps can fairly be taken as fair representatives of the different religious systems under which they were trained. Bill Crane could hardly claim any superiority over the heathen Chinee in point ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... had fallen, while eight thousand burghers and states' troops had been butchered; and now at Gemblours, six, seven, eight, ten—Heaven knew how many—thousand had been exterminated, and hardly a single Spaniard had been slain! Undoubtedly, the first reason for this result was the superiority of the Spanish soldiers. They were the boldest, the best disciplined, the most experienced in the world. Their audacity, promptness, and ferocity made them almost invincible. In this particular action, at least half the army of Don John was composed of Spanish or Spanish-Italian veterans. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... like smiling a smile of superiority in talking with old Mr. Wyllie. He has taught himself the gentle arts of gunsmithing and blacksmithing. The tools that we see all around us are marvels of mechanical skill and would be the joy of a modern Arts and Crafts Exhibition. His sledges and augurs, ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... than your brothers or sisters. The rod produces an effect which terminates in itself. A child is afraid of being whipped, and gets his task, and there's an end on't; whereas, by exciting emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay the foundation of lasting mischief; you make brothers and sisters ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... my dislike for the Indian came from his ridiculous and hateful assumption of superiority over the negro. To my mind, and to all sensible minds I fancy, one simple, honest, devoted black was worth a score of these conceited, childish brutes. I was so fond of my boy Tulp, that, even as a little fellow, I deeply ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... depressed over the smallness of the French numbers, and yet he was elated by Montcalm's decision to stay at Ticonderoga and await Abercrombie. He was confident, as he had said, that some lucky chance would happen, and that the overwhelming superiority of the Anglo-American army ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler

... misapplication of it, to which this want of harmony is to be imputed. An equal sensibility to the influence of the senses and the affections is to be found in the writings of Homer and Sophocles: the former, especially, has clothed sensual and pathetic images with irresistible attractions. Their superiority over these succeeding writers consists in the presence of those thoughts which belong to the inner faculties of our nature, not in the absence of those which are connected with the external: their incomparable perfection consists in a harmony ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... la plume a eu sous le roi d'avantage sur l'epee (So far had the pen under the king the superiority over the sword).—SAINT SIMON: Memoires, vol. iii. ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... as a building of recent date, it was a subject of sore vexation to all the people of the neighbourhood that their tower had no bells, while the inhabitants of Tintagel still possessed the famous peal that had rung for King Arthur's funeral. For some years, this superiority of the rival village was borne with composure by the people of Forrabury; but, in process of time, they lost all patience, and it was publicly determined by the rustic council, that the honour of their ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... climate for heavily armed Europeans. The effect produced among the Ashantis by the day's fighting was immense. All their theories that the white men could not fight in the bush were roughly upset, and they found that his superiority was as great there as it had been in the open. His heavy bullets, even at the distance of some hundred yards, crashed through the brush wood with deadly effect, while the slugs of the Ashantis would not penetrate at a distance much exceeding ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... "She doesn't require to assume it; the superiority's obvious; that's the trouble. One hesitates about offering her the small change of compliments that generally went well at home. If you try to say something smart, she looks at you as if she were amused, not at what you said, but at you. There's an ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss

... strange to see the kind of men who love clever women like you? You never could have brought yourself to marry any of them, expecting to find them congenial. They would have admired you in dumb silence, until they grew tired of feeling your superiority; ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... little attention to Mrs. Chiverton, who sat like a fine statue against the wall, unsought of partners, and Bessie went with cheerful submission. Her former school-rival was kind to her now with a patronizing, married superiority that she did not dislike. Mrs. Chiverton knew from her husband of the family project for Miss Fairfax's settlement in life, and as she approved of Mr. Cecil Burleigh as highly as her allegiance to Mr. Chiverton permitted her to ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr

... in his absence, they lay still in their intrenchments, and resisted all the efforts of the Rutulians to draw them into the field. Night coming on, the army of Turnus, in high spirits at their fancied superiority, feasted and enjoyed themselves, and finally stretched themselves on the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... Mr. SMEATON'S air-pump, should have been before the public so long, as ever since the publication of the forty-seventh volume of the Philosophical Transactions, printed in 1752, and yet that none of our philosophical instrument-makers should use the construction. The superiority of this pump, to any that are made upon the common plan, is, indeed, prodigious. Few of them will rarefy more than 100 times, and, in a general way, not more than 60 or 70 times; whereas this instrument ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... scarcely supposed to have possessed either the power or the inclination to do more than inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is always subjected by those mortals who ... could assert superiority over her." ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead

... magnificent part of their pagan worship. The Athenians, therefore, were delighted by the contentions of these two prodigious men: but, as it generally happens in cases of rivalship between public favourites, the people divided into two parties, one of which maintained the superiority of Sophocles, while the other insisted on the preeminence of Euripides. The truth is, that though rivals, and perhaps equals in talent, they could not afford a just subject of comparison. Magis pares quam similes—they ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... proportion to their foreign commerce. If it were adopted as an international rule, the commerce of a nation having comparatively a small naval force would be very much at the mercy of its enemy in case of war with a power of decided naval superiority. The bare statement of the condition in which the United States would be placed, after having surrendered the right to resort to privateers, in the event of war with a belligerent of naval supremacy will show ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... of these good men was sorely encumbered with the armor of Saul. Too much favorable legislation and patronizing from a foreign proprietary government, too arrogant a tone of superiority on the part of official friends, attempts to enforce conformity by imposing disabilities on other sects—these were among the chief occasions of the continual collision between the people and the colonial governments, which ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... said these words the worthy man swelled in his own eyes as much as he did in those of Popinot, and he uttered them with a plebeian and naive emphasis which was the genuine expression of his counterfeit superiority. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... said Mary with a sigh half of envy, half of superiority. "You don't know what I've come through. And I s'pose the ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... of Ega. I paid special attention to them, having found that this tribe was better adapted than almost any other group of animals or plants to furnish facts in illustration of the modifications which all species undergo in nature, under changed local conditions. This accidental superiority is owing partly to the simplicity and distinctness of the specific character of the insects, and partly to the facility with which very copious series of specimens can be collected and placed side by side for comparison. The distinctness of the specific characters is due probably to ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... This is not the spirit of the great warriors of art,—invincible powers, not misled by will-o'-the-wisps, but advancing always until they force Nature to lie bare in her divine integrity. That was Raphael's method," said the old man, lifting his velvet cap in homage to the sovereign of art; "his superiority came from the inward essence which seems to break from the inner to the outer of his figures. Form with him was what it is with us,—a medium by which to communicate ideas, sensations, feelings; in short, the infinite ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac

... highest in the English market, is that made at the Missionary institution of Bethelsdorp (a small village about nine miles from Algoa Bay, and chiefly inhabited by Hottentots and their missionary teachers). Its superiority arises not from the employment of a particular species of aloe, for all species are used, but from the greater care and attention paid to what is technically called the cooking of the aloes; that is, the evaporation, and to the absence of all adulterating substances (fragments of limestone, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... 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, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... into many languages; into English by Rockliffe (3rd edition, 1866). The fable in question describes how, at a picnic of the animals, a discussion arose as to which of them carried off the palm for superiority of talent. The praises of the ant, the dog, the bee, and the parrot were sung in turn; but at last the ostrich stood up and declared for the dromedary. Whereupon the dromedary stood up and declared for the ostrich. No one could discover the reason for ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... find good road, and ride up and dismount at the door of the little hotel as coolly as if I had rode without a dismount all the way from 'Frisco. Here at Verdi is a camp of Washoe Indians, who at once showed their superiority to the Diggers by clustering around and examining; the bicycle with great curiosity. Verdi is less than forty miles from the summit of the Sierras, and from the porch of the hotel I can see the snow-storm ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... council, depressed and uneasy. He felt that his countrymen held the Mexicans too lightly. Were other tragedies to be added to that of the Alamo? He was no egotist, but he was conscious of his superiority to all those present in the grave affairs with which ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler

... he expressed correctly what he found. His day and generation uttered itself through him. With such thoughts, and from this point of view, it is possible to contemplate Lincoln's early days, amid all their degraded surroundings and influences and unmarked by apparent antagonism or obvious superiority on ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... that night, but his manner in parting made it clear to me that if he came to New York it was his purpose to be of great service to me, to lift me up with him. His assumption of superiority filled me with a desire to outrun him. Vanity is a great stimulus to action, and the inspiring note of my life was forgotten as I contemplated David Malcolm in his sanctum, at a table littered with pages, every one of which would stab some devil of corruption or brighten ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... hears me this day think that refinement of manner or exquisiteness of taste or superiority of education can in any wise apologize for ill-temper, for an oppressive spirit, for unkindness, for any kind of sin. Disobedience Godward and transgression manward can give no excuse. Accomplishment heaven high is no apology for vice ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... been explained, and, indeed, the fundamental situation made the peril clear, that several German divisions were attempting to crush or drive back this devoted brigade, and in any event to use their enormous numerical superiority to sweep around and overwhelm its left wing. At some point in the line which cannot be precisely determined the last attempt partially succeeded, and in the course of this critical struggle German troops in considerable though not in overwhelming numbers swung ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... the Gangetic race, which had taken possession of Ceylon, was essentially adapted to agricultural pursuits—in which, to the present day, their superiority is apparent over the less energetic tribes of the Dekkan. Busied with such employments, the early colonists had no leisure for military service; besides, whilst Devenipiatissa and his successors were earnestly ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... were well known. The woman with the child was one of the Boswells: I dare not say what was her connection, if any, with "Boswell the Great"—I mean Sylvester Boswell, the grammarian and "well-known and popalated gipsy of Codling Gap," who, on a memorable occasion, wrote so eloquently about the superiority of the gypsy mode of life to all others "on the accont of health, sweetness of air, and for enjoying the pleasure of Nature's life." But this I do remember—that it was the very same Perpinia Boswell whose remarkable Christian name ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... our tent among our Indian allies; for it was argued with much force that if our spies had been discovered, the Sioux would follow their trail, and as it passed directly by our tents, we should fall the first victims; that if the Sioux, notwithstanding their superiority in numbers, should not think it prudent to attack the main camp, they would not fail to attack, according to their custom, the out-camps, take what scalps they could, and retreat. But there was a strong objection to moving ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... seen since Julian's death. Men compared him to Trajan, and in a happier age he might have rivalled Trajan's fame. But now the Empire was ready to perish. The beaten army was hopelessly demoralized, and Theodosius had to form a new army of barbarian legionaries before the old tradition of Roman superiority could resume its wonted sway. It soon appeared that the Goths could do nothing with their victory, and sooner or later would have to make their peace with Rome. Theodosius drove them inland in the first campaign; and while he lay sick at ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... her very warmly for her solution, though it was but partial; wondering much that in her, as in woman I met on my first entering the forest, there should be such superiority to her apparent condition. Here she left me to take some rest; though, indeed, I was too much agitated to rest in any other way than by ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... this superiority consist? I saw that whatever it was, I had little praise in it. I said, 'What have I done to be better than I found myself? If Lizzie had not taken me in hand, I should not have done even this. What an effort it would need for one of these ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... London to the New York "Sun," July 3d, 1898, contains a practical illustration of the superiority of a vegetable diet: ...
— The Golden Age Cook Book • Henrietta Latham Dwight

... if the whole army had fought, and we had lost the day, one might have hoped to have come off for eight battalions. Then they tell you that the French had four-and-twenty-pounders, and that they must beat us by the superiority of their cannon; so that to me it is grown a paradox, to war with a nation who have a mathematical certainty of beating you; or else it is a still stranger paradox, why you cannot have as large cannon as the French. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... with which he treated all her higher tastes and aspirations, continually throwing her in and back upon herself, and blighting her instincts wherever they turned. She had accepted all this as his superiority to her folly, and though the thwarted and unfostered inclinations in her strong unstained nature had occasioned those aberrations and distorted impulses which brought blame on her, she had accepted everything ...
— Two Penniless Princesses • Charlotte M. Yonge

... with, which he will enlarge into the opinion of the world in general, and will probably come home, if not to contradict his mother, at least to patronize her and go his own way, smiling at her with an air of manly superiority and with a lofty consciousness that he knows a thing or two which lie beyond a woman's ken. Probably enough he takes up with views on religion, or politics, or social questions which are emphatically ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins

... of that immortal fame, which no poet has so highly deserved Dryden's labours were ever in the eye of the public; and he maintained, from the time of the Restoration till his death, in 1700, a decided and acknowledged superiority over all the poets of his age. As he wrote from necessity, he was obliged to pay a certain deference to the public opinion; for he, whose bread depends upon the success of his volume, is compelled to study popularity; but, on the other hand, his better judgment was ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... Mr. Payne, "Shakespere had been without education, do you think the fact would have escaped the notice of such bitter and unscrupulous enemies as Nash, Greene, and others, who hated him for his towering superiority?" ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... True, they were not, technically speaking, crimes directed against the United States. They did not injure our material interests. They injured only our souls and the world in which we have to live. They were vivid illustrations of the inward nature of that German Kultur whose superiority, the German professors say, "is rooted in the unfathomable depths of its moral constitution." (Deutsche Reden in Schwerer Zeit, ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke

... importance of the latter, but the general necessity of affording them the security of fortification, which enables a weaker force to hold its own against sudden attack, and until relief can be given. Fortifications, like natural accidents of ground, serve to counterbalance superiority of numbers, or other disparity of means; both in land and sea warfare, therefore, and in both strategy and tactics, they are valuable adjuncts to a defence, for they constitute a passive reinforcement of strength, which liberates an active equivalent, in troops or in ships, for offensive operations. ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... the usual top-dressing after the crop was cut; but the timothy did not respond,—the late season was too dry. We cut two more crops from the alfalfa field, which together made a yield of a little more than 2 tons. The alfalfa in that dry summer gave me 95 tons of good hay, proving its superiority as ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... follow immediately after that of the Rig-veda will be found to treat Indra as the type of the warrior order.[9] They will describe an imaginary coronation-ceremony of Indra, ending with these words: "Anointed with this great anointment Indra won all victories, found all the worlds, attained the superiority, pre-eminence, and supremacy over all the gods, and having won the overlordship, the paramount rule, the self rule, the sovereignty, the supreme authority, the kingship, the great kingship, the suzerainty in this world, self-existing, self-ruling, immortal, in yonder ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett

... their own validity, and appeal to them as authority. Systems of Hindu philosophy not only own their allegiance to the Vedas, but the adherents of each one of them would often quarrel with others and maintain its superiority by trying to prove that it and it alone was the faithful follower of the Vedas and represented correctly their views. The laws which regulate the social, legal, domestic and religious customs and rites of the Hindus even to the present day are said to be but ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... Esperance was subjugated by the attraction of his masculinity and strength, which was subtly energetic and audacious. His taste and independence appealed to her artistic nature. His vibrant voice, the grace of his slender hands, the lightness of his spirits always alert, his superiority at every sport, made the Duke de Morlay-La-Branche quite like a real hero of romance. He had expected to subjugate the little Parisian idol, and found himself thwarted by her. This rather annoyed him, and he ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... described, the savages on shore, constantly reinforced by new arrivals, began to move steadily down in an overwhelming mass towards the spit of sand, and the heroes who stood there, though comparatively so few in number, were, with their superiority of weapons and courage, certain to make a fearfully prolonged ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... which are pretty certainly Dekker's, have been noticed already. The otherwise worthless play of The Thracian Wonder, attributed to Webster and Rowley, contains an unusual number of good songs. Heywood and Massinger were not great at songs, and the superiority of those in The Sun's Darling over the songs in Ford's other plays, seems to point to the authorship of Dekker. Finally, James Shirley has the song gift of his greater predecessors. Every one knows "The glories of our blood and state," ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... Hence they deem all attempts to render the church identical with any outward organizations as utterly futile, not warranted by Christ himself, and incompatible with its spiritual character. Having no organized society, they have no stations of authority or superiority, which they believe to be inconsistent with the Christian idea, (Matt. 23:8,)—"But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren." (Matt. 20:25, 26,)—"Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... were conscious of our presence. This absurd assumption of dignity greatly tickled us at the moment, we attributing it entirely to the existence in the native mind of a profound conviction of their own immeasurable superiority; but subsequent events tended to give another and a more sinister aspect to the incident. We pressed diligently on with our work until six o'clock, at which time we found ourselves abreast a small ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... kiddies will do!" said Norah, with all the superiority of twelve long years. "It frightened Dad tremendously. He didn't know what to do, 'cause he didn't dare come near or call out. I s'pose the snake saw him, 'cause it began to move. It crawled ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce

... the wonders belong to the lower Columbia. Before being joined by the Snake River, it has drained a region noted for agricultural superiority and contributed liberally to the needs of irrigation. The "Big Bend" on the left, and the valleys watered by its tributaries from the right, are described under the ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles

... never cease to need from the experience of the humblest. Carlyle allows no one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his wit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual physical superiority, raising his voice and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sound. This is not the least from unwillingness to allow freedom to others; on the contrary, no man would more enjoy a manly resistance ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... important observations. The first was, that as a general rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent; the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical, and the other of any other shape, the superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere; the third, that, between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I have had several conversations on this subject with an old schoolmaster of ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck

... their nobility and descent from Hercules. For it had been more honorable for the Argives under the leadership of Siphnians and Cythnians to have defended the Grecian liberty, than contending with the Spartans for superiority to have avoided so many and such signal combats. And if it was they who brought the Persians into Greece, because their war against the Lacedaemonians succeeded ill, how came it to pass, that they did not at the coming of Xerxes openly join themselves to the Medes? ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch

... personal study. In his letter to the Duchess of Maine, prefixed to Oreste, he relates how, in his early youth, he had access to a noble house where it was a custom to read Sophocles, and to make extemporary translations from him, and where there were men who acknowledged the superiority of the Greek Theatre over the French. In vain, in the present day, should we seek for such men in France, among people of any distinction, so universally is the study of the classics depreciated.] (with the proviso, however, as may be supposed, of improving on them,) and of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... the Guardian the ironical comparison between the pastorals of Philips and Pope, a composition of artifice, criticism, and literature, to which nothing equal will easily be found. The superiority of Pope is so ingeniously dissembled, and the feeble lines of Philips so skilfully preferred, that Steele, being deceived, was unwilling to print the paper, lest Pope should be offended. Addison immediately ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... himself—it was a time when an ancient stock was thought to count for much—and he was sure that the blood in his veins was noble, but, white though he was, he did not feel any superiority to Tayoga. Instead he paid him respect where respect was due because, born to a great place in a great race, he was equal to it. He understood, too, why the Hodenosaunee seemed immutable and eternal to its people, as ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler

... natural state of things in those little towns; something of the old spirit still lives. Then the Mortons have the immense advantage of being an old family, settled there for generations, known and respected by everyone. That's a kind of superiority one can't buy, and goes for a great deal in comfortable living. Morton's servants are the daughters of people who served his parents. From their childhood they have thought it would be a privilege to ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... approval of our fellow-travellers) that there was something heartless in the idea of an excursion to listen to the recital of a woman's wrongs, especially of Miss Cox's, whom we had known so long and esteemed. Driven from this position, Mr. Hansombody took a fresh stand on the superiority of the old broad-gauge carriages; and this, since it raised no personal question, we discussed in very good humour while we unpacked and ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... woman would ultimately end in the dissolution of the family, and, if carried out, render poor service to the majority of women. If man and woman were placed entirely on the same level, and if in the competition between the two sexes nothing but an actual superiority should decide, it is to be feared that woman would soon be relegated to a condition as hard as that in which she is found among all barbarous nations. It is precisely family life and higher civilization that have emancipated woman. Those ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... society and the civilization of the race is so important, that Sir Henry S. Maine, in his Ancient Law, expresses the opinion that, had it never existed, the primitive groups of mankind could not have coalesced except on terms of absolute superiority on the one side and absolute subjection on the other. With the institution of adoption, however, one people might feign itself as descended from the same stock as the people to whose sacra gentilicia it was admitted; and amicable relations were thus established ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... half-grown soldiers that followed Mendoza's cavalry at a quick step. Stuart's picked men, over whom he had spent many hot and weary hours, looked like a troop of Life Guardsmen in comparison. Clay noted their superiority, but he also saw that in numbers they were most woefully at ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... given to very few to be able to do. Of the ploughmen, farmers, lairds, or factors, he saw round about him there was none to compare with him in natural ability, few his equal in field-work. 'At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook,' he remarks, 'I feared no competitor.' Yet, conscious of easy superiority, he saw himself a drudge, almost a slave, while those whom nature had not blessed with brains were gifted with a goodly ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun

... respect for the established order of things, and by the fidelity and industry with which they pursued their various callings? The inevitable consequence of these national qualities was that they did not exercise the political influence which would have been only in keeping with their numerical superiority. For instance, I might mention that, on the occasion when I first visited Milwaukee, I was welcomed by an Irish mayor, a circumstance which somewhat surprised me, seeing that at the time the town contained from ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... the rival nations that may be considered as forming the republic of modern Europe, you will see one pre-eminent for her maritime strength and colonial and commercial enterprise, and you will find she retains her superiority only because it is favourable to the liberty of mankind. But you must not yet suffer the vision of modern Europe to pass from your eyes without viewing some other results of the efforts of men of genius, ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... Giovanni, though Mozart's score is simplicity itself compared with this. This use of a kind of rocking figure led many younger musicians astray; and I make a comparison between their use of it and Wagner's with no intention of being odious to any one, but to show exactly where Wagner's superiority lay. Take a composer of very fine genius, Anton Dvorak, and look at a beautiful number (beautiful in a primitive, almost savage way) in his Stabat Mater, the Eia, mater. The theme of this (a, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... keenly, and cursed the falsehood which had placed him in such an unenviable position. It was vain to assume the old superiority that was forfeited; but too much a man of the world to be long discomforted by any contretemps like this, he rapidly regained his habitual ease of manner, and avoiding the perilous past clung to the safer present, hoping, ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... performed by an educated woman than an uneducated one. Just as an army where even the bayonets think is superior to one of mere brute force and mechanical training, so, I have heard it said, some of our distinguished modern female reformers show an equal superiority in the domestic sphere,—and I do not doubt it. Family work was never meant to be the special province of untaught brains. I have sometimes thought I should like to show what I could do as ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... decided to treat that ugly little pistol in a spirit of contempt. Its production had given him a decided shock, and now he was suffering from reaction. As a consequence, because his nerves were strained, he lit his cigarette very languidly, very carefully, and with an offensive superiority which was to Mr Birdsey ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... might otherwise have had its effect, was lost in the cries, accusations, and counter-accusations that arose like a babel. Morton made no further attempt. He better than any one realized, I think, the numerical superiority ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... determinazione di questa questione, se e piu nobile la pittura o la scultura; dicendo che quanto piu un'arte porta seco fatica di corpo, e sudore, tanto piu e vile, e men pregiata". But the existence of any book specially written for Lodovico il Moro on the superiority of Painting over sculpture is perhaps mythical. The various passages in praise of Painting as compared not merely with Sculpture but with Poetry, are scattered among MSS. of ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... on your commands with so much ostentatious superiority, Master Markham Everard. Remember, I am your senior of three years' standing. Confound me, if I know how to ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott

... a new peril. At Pharsalia, where the cavalry of Pompey was far superior to his own, he anticipated and was in full readiness for the particular man[oe]uvre by which it was attempted to make this superiority available against himself. By a new formation of his troops he foiled the attack, and caused it to recoil upon the enemy. Had Pompey then no rejoinder ready for meeting this reply? No. His one arrow being ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... ready to acknowledge the superiority of this untutored intellect. Still, he was quite astonished at passing so many winter evenings by his fireside with this peasant without feeling either bored or tired; and he would wonder how it was that the village schoolmaster, and even the prior of the ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... brother's temper was not more happy. His native haughtiness could not bear a superiority so visible; and whom we fear more than love, we are not far from hating: and having less command of his passions than the other, he was evermore the subject of his perhaps indecent ridicule: so that every body, either from love or fear, siding with his antagonist, he had a most ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... And the accident of going to Paris colored vividly the superficial layers of George Moore's soul. This book partly represents a flaunting of such borrowed colors. It was the fashion of the Parisian diabolists to gloat over cruelty, by way of showing their superiority to Christian morality. The enjoyment of others' suffering was a splendid pagan virtue. So George Moore kept a pet python, and cultivated paganness by watching it devour ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... is good. This silly, base propensity might have cost me dear, would have cost me my husband's affections, had he not been a man, as there are few, above all jealousy of female influence or female talent; in short, he knew his own superiority, and needed not to measure himself to prove his height. He is quite content, rather glad, that every body should set him down as a common-place character. Far from being jealous of his wife's ruling him, he was amused by the notion: it ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... my superior officer, Leonidas," said Lieutenant-Colonel Hector St. Hilaire, "but remember that this superiority applies only to military rank. I assert now, with all respect to your feelings, that in regard to chess it does not exist, never ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler

... "High Elms" that the footed upright is an improvement; but I am inclined to doubt the advantage of the double notch between the upright and the stretcher. I have tried both, and I cannot find that there is any great superiority in his plan; but, perhaps, though I have exactly followed his directions as given in the Field, I may have omitted some point of practical importance. In setting the Figure of 4 trap, the height of the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... them, which they never could have possest, and perhaps will never possess again. It is, indeed, exactly this want of heroic grandeur which renders this event peculiarly instructive; and while others aim at showing the superiority of genius over chance, I shall here paint a scene where necessity creates genius, and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... indulged child of his boyhood, infinitely winning, provoking, wilful. He could not be helped, because he could never get away from himself; he could admire almost frenziedly, but he could not worship; he could not keep himself from criticism even when he adored, and he had a bitter superiority of spirit, a terrible perception of the imperfections and faults of others, a real ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Euryptolemus married, he remained present till the ceremony of the drink-offering, and then immediately rose from the table and went his way. For these friendly meetings are very quick to defeat any assumed superiority, and in intimate familiarity an exterior of gravity is hard to maintain. Real excellence, indeed, is best recognized when most openly looked into; and in really good men, nothing which meets the eyes of external ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch

... possible objection," replied Cumberland, with the slightest imaginable assumption of superiority in his tone, which annoyed my ear, and which I felt sure would produce the same effect upon Oaklands. The next game Oaklands won; and they continued to play the rest of the afternoon with various success, and for what appeared to me very high stakes. I calculated ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... inclined to make too much of the passage of Scripture— already noticed in another chapter—where Cain is said to have been set over Abel, in the very language which is used to signify the superiority of Adam over Eve. And yet it must mean something. There is a mutual dependence between brothers and sisters of every age, which should result in continual improvement—intellectual, moral and religious. The duties involved in this relation, however, ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott

... that superiority over his father that he was a sincere bigot. In the narrow and gloomy depths of his soul he had doubtless persuaded himself that it was necessary for the redemption of the human species that the empire of the world should be vested in his hands, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... confidence and superiority about her as she uttered these words—a sense, as it were, of power—of a privilege to command, by which the stranger felt himself involuntarily influenced. He once more offered her money, but, with a motion of her hand, she silently, ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... staircase, on which occasion Thatcher had greeted her with a word or two of respectful yet half-humorous courtesy,—a courtesy which never really offends a true woman, although it often piques her self-aplomb by the slight assumption of superiority in the humorist. A woman is quick to recognize the fact that the great and more dangerous passions are always SERIOUS, and may be excused if in self-respect she is often induced to try if there ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... difficult task in the darkness. The men, shaking from cold and starving, could not work any more. The venerable General Eble, who was not young as they were and had not taken rest as they had, suffered more than they did, but he had the moral superiority and spoke to them, appealing to their devotedness, told them of the certain disaster which would annihilate the whole army if they did not repair the bridges; and his address made a deep impression. With supreme self-denial they went to work again. General Lauriston, ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... you were not born in the middle ages," said Miss Vavasor, smiling, but with a touch of gentle scorn in the superiority of her tone; "you ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald

... be seen that while I attribute to woman a certain superiority both of nature and function, as to the highest part of the nature common to both, I at the same time assert her inferiority in what may be called its fundamental attributes, those which lie nearest to the constant and successful prosecution ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... conduct, we see, they themselves cannot justify: They found themselves injured, and sought for redress in a legal way. The best method, in my opinion, to preserve a good understanding with such people, is, first, by shewing them the use of firearms, to convince them of the superiority they give you over them, and then to be always upon your guard. When once they are sensible of these things, a regard for their own safety will deter them from disturbing you, or from being unanimous in forming any ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... Jezebel justice, we must ask ourselves, how did the assumedly good Elijah proceed in order to persuade her of the superiority of his truth? It is painful to have to relate that that much overestimated "man of God" invited four hundred and fifty of Jezebel's preachers to an open air exhibition of miracles, but, not satisfied with gaining a victory over them in this display, he pursued ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... who steps into the little house made untidy by the vigorous efforts of her hostess, the washerwoman, is no longer sure of her superiority to the latter; she recognizes that her hostess after all represents social value and industrial use, as over against her own parasitic cleanliness and a social standing attained only ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... on the contrary, was still stimulating, if indeed I ever found it more so in the foolish past. It had not altered in the least. There was the same sweet pedantry of the Attic e, the same superiority to the most venial abbreviation, the same inconsistent forest of exclamatory notes, thick as poplars across the channel. The present plantation started after my own Christian name, to wit "Dear Duncan!!" Yet there was nothing Germanic in ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... in this respect. From the best and wisest people of christian Europe down to the vilest and most degraded tribes of heathen Australia, a regular scale might be formed of the general mode of behaviour to the weaker sex among these various nations; and, mostly, it would be found that the general superiority or inferiority of each nation is not untruly indicated by the kindness or cruelty with which ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... mocking gaiety and reckless levity, is just as marked as that, between the resolute countenances of the Orsini type, such as I noticed here, and the frivolous faces, which express nothing but a contemptuous superiority or mere indifference. Faces of this type were also to be seen among the spectators, or among the delegates who accompanied the banners inscribed "The Press," "Freethought," "Freedom for Labour," and ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson

... bruises, the cuts, and the gashes, and all the wounds of Cuchulain, he used to send an equal portion westward across the ford to Ferdia, so that in case Ferdia fell at his hand the men of Ireland should not be able to say that it was owing to superiority in leech-craft that he had done it. And of each kind of food, and of pleasant, palatable, intoxicating drink that the men of Ireland brought to Ferdia, he would send a fair half northward across the ford to Cuchulain; for the men who provided food for Ferdia were more in number ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy

... conscious superiority in his tone, which was naturally irritating to his companion, ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton

... understanding as to her father's wealth—placed her on a glorified pinnacle far away from the girls of the neighborhood. These honest and good-hearted creatures indeed called ceaseless attention to her superiority by their deference and open-mouthed admiration, and treated it as the most natural thing in the world that their young minister should be visibly "taken" ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... and we never recovered him, but it was by far the best gallop of the season?' It is evident to me that what you like is riding a good hunter fast over a stiff country—going a turn better than your neighbours, and giving your own skill that credit which is due to the superiority of your horse. You only consider the hounds as a fleeting object at which to ride; the fox as a necessary evil, without which all this 'rasping' and 'bruising' and 'cutting down,' as you call it in your ridiculous jargon, cannot be attained. Why, then, do you waste so much energy, and money, and ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville

... that Mr. Vincent was a rich man. He felt what a wide gulf there was socially between himself and Oscar; one the son of a very poor country farmer, the other the son of a merchant prince. But nothing in Oscar's manner indicated the faintest feeling of superiority, and this pleased Harry. I may as well say, however, that our hero was not one to show any foolish subserviency to a richer boy; he thought mainly of Oscar's superiority in knowledge; and although the latter was far ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.

... has frightened thousands into pretending to know authors with whom they have not even a bowing acquaintance. It is amazing that a man who had read so much should have written so contemptuously of those who have read but little; one would have thought that the consciousness of superiority would have forbidden such insolence, or that his reading would have been extensive enough to teach him at least how little he had read of what there was to read; since he read some things—works of imagination and humour, for example—to such very little purpose, he might really have bragged a ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn

... kindness that greeted him, and which nothing but the caprice and perversity of his mother could occasionally develope. But since the great revolution in his position, since circumstances had made him alike acquainted with his nature, and had brought all society to acknowledge its superiority; since he had gained and felt his irresistible power, and had found all the world, and all the glory of it, at his feet, these moods had become more frequent. The slightest reaction in the self-complacency that was almost unceasingly stimulated by the applause ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... manner. King Charles's men barely outnumbered the enemy. A certain clerk of that time, a Frenchman, writes of the engagement. His innate ingeniousness was invincible. With candid common sense he states that this very slight numerical superiority rendered the enterprise very arduous and difficult for his party.[1952] And the battle was strong indeed. The Burgundians were mightily afraid of the Maid because they believed her to be a witch and in command of ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... studying the markets and purchasing his stock in trade. He purchased wisely, too. He offered a choice stock of goods, or, rather, his two salesmen did. He himself did not sell much over his own counters, except in the case of a great rush of business. But it was not from the least sensation of superiority. It was merely because of a distrust of his own ability to acquit himself well in such a totally different branch of industry. Anderson was cast on unusually simple and ingenuous lines. Nobody would have believed it, ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... ranks, was long and doubtful. The Duc d'Anjou displayed great courage in the fight; while on the other side the Princes of Navarre and Conde, who had that morning joined the army from Parthenay, fought bravely in the front of the Huguenots. The Catholic line began to give way, in spite of their superiority in numbers; when Marshal Cosse advanced with fresh troops into the battle, and the Huguenots in turn ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty

... by a horse. Poor man! I pitied him; and yet I never for a moment hesitated to acknowledge him as my master; for, with all his detects, I felt that he was in possession of some faculty incomprehensible to me, but which overpowered a thousand and a thousand times the utmost animal superiority. ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland

... not without his humorous side, however, when only you were in the right mood to appreciate it. His envy of the superiority which he noted in others was only equalled by ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... Libya; the American-British occupation of North Africa. Of continuing importance in the year 1942 were the unending and bitterly contested battles of the convoy routes, and the gradual passing of air superiority from the Axis ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt

... mind and body and his boasted superiority, man must go forth and learn the secrets of light-production before he may emancipate himself from darkness. If man could emit light in relative proportion to his size as compared with the firefly, he would need no ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... of Guy. He did not seem quite like Dr. Holbrook. He was haughtier in his appearance, while his rather elaborate style of dress and polished manners gave him, in her estimation, a kind of superiority over all the men she had ever met. Besides that, she remembered how his dark eyes had flashed when she told him what she did the previous day, and also that she had said to his face that she hated him. She could not bear to leave a bad impression on ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes

... along Chestnut Street with an augmenting procession of fifty curious Sunday promenaders was not on my card. In fact, I had some difficulty in tearing myself from the inquisitive, questioning, well-dressed people. The gypsies bore the pressure with the serene equanimity of cosmopolite superiority, smiling at provincial rawness. Even so in China and Africa the traveler is mobbed by the many, who, there as here, think that "I want to know" is full excuse for all intrusiveness. Q'est tout comme chez nous. I confess that I ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland

... voted for use on the roads of the State of Harpeth, thus making my Gouverneur Faulkner not beloved of the people in the country around the capital city, and when I returned him I had used many beguilements in the way of flattery about the superiority of the roads of America to the roads of all of the world, and had also jolted him to such an extent that he did write a nice letter to my Gouverneur Faulkner asking that that money be not voted less but even more, so as to "beat out the world ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess

... tendency to worship him. But this tendency need not be harmful to sanity of intellect. There are various degrees of divinity. Baha-'ullah's degree maybe compared to St. Paul's. Both these spiritual heroes were conscious of their superiority to ordinary believers; at the same time their highest wish was that their disciples might learn to be as they were themselves. Every one is the temple of the holy (divine) Spirit, and this Spirit-element must be deserving of worship. It is probable that the Western training ...
— The Reconciliation of Races and Religions • Thomas Kelly Cheyne

... the dignity they attached to the humblest vocations. They had one proverb that embraced it all: "Labor is the necessity of life." I studied this peculiar phase of Mizora life, and at last comprehended that in this very law of social equality lay the foundation of their superiority. Their admirable system of adapting the mind to the vocation in which it was most capable of excelling, and endowing that with dignity and respect, and, at the same time, compelling the highest mental culture possible, had produced ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... exaggerated; perhaps it is; I've never seen him since; but at that time he seemed to me a tremendous fellow—a kind of scientific Ajax. He was a capital travelling-companion, at any rate: good-tempered, cheerful, easily amused, with none of the been-there-before superiority so irritating to youngsters. He made us feel as though it were all as new to him as to us: he never chilled our enthusiasms or took the bloom off our surprises. There was nobody else whose good opinion I cared as much about: he was the biggest ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton

... his orders in all the campaigns of the six previous years; it disputed the land, foot to foot, with the 25,000 English, who followed the French army, without letting itself, for a single moment, be troubled or pressed by the superiority of the enemy. The least offensive movement of the English columns was responded to by a charge from our troops, which soon re-established the distance between the two armies. Massena, who was present at the manoeuvres of Marshal Ney, admired them without reserve, beseeching ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... made by the coincident working of the underhand and "rill" method (Fig. 27). This order of stope has the same limitations in general as the underhand kind. For flat veins with strong walls, it has a great superiority in that the stope is carried back more or less parallel with the winzes, and thus broken ore after blasting lies in a line on the gradient of the stope. It is, therefore, conveniently placed for mechanical stope haulage. A further advantage is gained in that ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... O Marcellus, while time permits it, reconciliation and peace with me, informing the Senate of my superiority in force, and the impossibility of resistance. The tablet is ready: let me take off this ring—try to write, to sign it, at least. Oh, what satisfaction I feel at seeing you able to rest upon the elbow, ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... simple act completed our utter demoralisation! We smiled feebly at each other with that assumption of masculine superiority which is miserably conscious of its own helplessness at such moments. We looked out of the window, blew our noses, said: "Eh—what?" and "I say," vaguely to each other, and were greatly relieved and yet apparently astonished when ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... agreed that Henry and Shif'less Sol, the best two trailers, should go forward, while the other three should remain in reserve to cover their retreat, if it were forced, or to go forward to possible rescue, if they did not return before morning. The decision was reached quickly. The superiority was accorded at once and without jealousy to Henry and the ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... divest himself," and his determination not to exhibit or be puffed up by it, and looking back on his tutorial manner (I was in his lectures both in classics and mathematics), it was strange how he disguised, not only his sense of superiority, but the appearance of it, so that his pupils felt him more as a fellow-student than as the refined scholar or mathematician which he was. This was partly owing to his carelessness of those formulae, the familiarity with which gives ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church

... with the barest privilege of getting something to eat. Beyond this he had nothing. Everywhere he turned, he felt the withering glance of a suspicious people. Prejudice and prescriptive legislation cast their dark shadows on his daily path; and the conscious superiority of the whites consigned him to the severest drudgery for his daily bread. The recollection of the past was distressing, the trials and burdens of the present were almost unbearable, while the future was one shapeless horror ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... trumpets and bugles had been doubled and trebled. Then began a battle, such as has seldom been more cruelly fought in a concert-room. The orchestra flung itself, so to speak, upon the scanty audience with such an overwhelming superiority of numbers that the latter speedily gave up all thought of resistance and literally took to flight. Mme. Schroder-Devrient had kindly taken a front seat, that she might hear the concert to an end. Much as she may have been inured to terrors of this kind, this was more than she could stand, even ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... the Society should take place, we should be found again at our post, renewing our gigantic and spirited endeavours, and once more making the world ring with the accuracy, authenticity, immeasurable superiority, and intense remarkability of our account of its proceedings. In redemption of this pledge, we caused to be despatched per steam to Oldcastle (at which place this second meeting of the Society was held on ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... the outset there was a close contest between the continuous spinning machine of Arkwright and the intermittent spinning machine of Crompton. It was not long, however, before the mule asserted its superiority over the water frame for fine muslin yarns, and for weft yarns. Eventually the water frame was relegated to the production of strong warp yarns, and later still it has come to be largely utilised as a doubling ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson

... superiority I may boast by virtue of my classical education: I can chatter flat nonsense in ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)

... figure out something effective to do, I'm not going to try to do anything. If you, with your vaunted and flaunted belief in the inherent superiority of the female over the male, can dope out something useful before I do, I'll eat crow and help you do it. As for arguing with you, I'm ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... dignity of a superior being which a husband should possess. She became aware that she had thought the less of him because he had thought the more of her. She had worshipped this other man because he had assumed superiority and had told her that he was big enough to be her master. But now,—now that it was all too late,—the veil had fallen from her eyes. She could now see the difference between manliness and "deportment." Ah,—that she should ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... looking as if they were guarding the entrance) were a brilliant centre for all the Roman and diplomatic world. He was a thorough man of the world, could make himself charming when he chose, but he never had a pleasant manner, was curt, arrogant, with a very strong sense of his own superiority. From the first moment he came to Paris as ambassador, he put people's backs up. They never liked him, never trusted him; whenever he had an unpleasant communication to make, he exaggerated the unpleasantness, never attenuated, and there is so much in the way things are ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington

... concerned, the laws are based on principles of justice and equality, and yet, the wealthy, the influential and the powerful, in many instances, find but little difficulty in evading the law, and perverting justice whenever they come in contact with the indigent and ignorant. From a superiority of knowledge, wealth and station, men derive advantages in legal transactions as well as in everything else. It is but one of the misfortunes ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward

... favoured by fortune, in having obtained two benefices; a circumstance witnessed with envy by several of the ecclesiastics, his contemporaries; who felt themselves thrown constantly into the shade by his superiority in this as in other respects. The priests, his companions, were not inclined to be indulgent to any weakness shown by their young and admired rival; the husbands of some of his fair parishioners looked on him with an evil eye, while the ladies themselves could ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... in such tarts and puddings as would bring customers to the shop. She put in plenty of sugar and of cochineal, or whatever it is that gives these articles a rich and attractive colour. She had a serene superiority to observation and opportunity which constituted an inexpugnable strength and would enable her to go on indefinitely. It is only real success that wanes, it is only solid things that melt. Greville Fane's ignorance of life was a resource still ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James

... that I have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you. Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the insolence of imaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon have done.—She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me entirely, and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet again.—She felt the engagement to be ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... so big and the minority faces them with a readiness and an assurance that shows in their eyes, on their lips, vibrates from their compacted alliance, the measure is one of will, rather than physical and merely numerical superiority, and the balance beam quivers undecidedly. The bearded miner, with the rest, looked shiftily toward the man who had done the speaking, the bald-headed one, whose khaki and nail-studded boots were belied by the softness and puffiness of his flesh, the sags and wrinkles beneath his eyes ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... Ann," said her husband, with superiority. "It ain't time fer the train yit—leastwise I don't think it ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough

... dogs the stories are told concerning runaway negroes, and which were taught by means of raw food, placed in stuffed representations of human beings. They are very handsome creatures, carrying their heads with an air of conscious superiority. They follow a track rapidly, and in complete silence; they, however, always seize ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... derived from this handsome and dignified exterior. Yet a skilful physiognomist would have been less satisfied with the countenance on the second than on the first view. The eyebrow and upper lip bespoke something of the habit of peremptory command and decisive superiority. Even his courtesy, though open, frank, and unconstrained, seemed to indicate a sense of personal importance; and, upon any check or accidental excitation, a sudden, though transient lour of the eye, showed a hasty, haughty, and vindictive ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott

... you put in at all, immediately—say within ten minutes after churning. Some accomplish this by washing, and others by working it, being much opposed to putting in a drop of water. Those who use water in their butter, and those who do not, are equally confident of the superiority of their own method. But all good butter-makers agree, that the less you work butter, and still remove all the milk, the better it will be; and the more you are obliged to work it, the more gluey, and therefore the poorer the quality. Very good butter is made by immediately working ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... sacrifice. "All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given ... there be eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it" (Matt. xix. 11, 12). Following this, 1 Cor. vii. teaches the superiority of an unmarried state, and threatens "trouble in the flesh" to those who marry. And in Rev. xiv. 1-4, we find, following the Lamb, with special privileges, 144,000 who "were not defiled with women; for they are virgins." This coarse and insulting way of regarding women, as though ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... "How comes it that Sultan Mahmud, who has so many handsome bondswomen, each of whom is the wonder of the world and most select of the age, entertains not such fondness and affection for any of them as he does for Ayaz, who can boast of no superiority of charms?" He replied: "Whatever makes an impression on the heart seems lovely in the eye. That person of whom the sultan makes choice must be altogether good, though a compendium of vice; but where he is estranged from the favor ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... despotism of the monarchs of the Old World is by no means restricted to this question of the control and custody of the junior members of their respective families. Every prince and princess of the latter, no matter what his or her age, or superiority in point of years to the sovereign may be, is subjected to the will of the head of the house. For instance, no Russian grand duke or grand duchess can leave the Muscovite empire without previously asking and obtaining ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... roared the impulsive fellow, "I'll have you to understand that my wife and I are just as good as you, with your cursed airs of superiority!" and he stormed out of doors, and incontinently returned to town. When I met him afterwards he condescendingly declared that he didn't blame me, except that I ought to be a man and not allow "old Pink" to insult my guests. I did not ...
— That Mother-in-Law of Mine • Anonymous

... glorify a renowned Englishman's inflexibility, it illustrates at all events the temper in which the war was waged. Ferocity to Irishmen was accounted policy and steadfastness. Every advantage was taken of the superiority of English steel and ordnance. Writing in 1603 for the information of King James, Ralegh says that, when he was a Captain in Ireland, a hundred foot and a hundred horse would have beaten all the force of the strongest provinces, for 'in those ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... bore himself with a cold reserve of conscious superiority. He might have been forty, though the humorless immobility of his face gave him a seeming of greater age. In stature he was above the average height and his eyes were shrewd and piercing. To the salutations of those present, he responded with a ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... United Nations in munitions and ships must be overwhelming—so overwhelming that the Axis Nations can never hope to catch up with it. And so, in order to attain this overwhelming superiority the United States must build planes and tanks and guns and ships to the utmost limit of our national capacity. We have the ability and capacity to produce arms not only for our own forces, but also for the armies, navies, and air ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... out, as they moved steadily onward, the forces which were opposed to them. We say it reluctantly, and for the first time, that the enemy have shown the finest qualities, and we acknowledge on this occasion their superiority in the open field to our own men. They delivered their fire with precision, and were apparently inflexible and immovable under the storm of bullets and shell which they were constantly receiving. Coming to a piece of timber, ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke

... essay in arms of the New England colonists impressed on the Indians a high opinion of their courage and military superiority; but their victory was sullied with cruelties which cannot be recollected without ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall



Words linked to "Superiority" :   inferiority, caliber, haughtiness, ingenuity, advantage, choiceness, high-handedness, lordliness, domination, supremacy, favourable position, whip hand, edge, ingeniousness, first water, mastery, cleverness, calibre, low quality, transcendence, superiority complex, superior, transcendency, fineness, first class, inside track, high quality, hauteur, vantage, arrogance, favorable position, quality



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