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Surpass   /sərpˈæs/   Listen
Surpass

verb
(past & past part. surpassed; pres. part. surpassing)
1.
Distinguish oneself.  Synonyms: excel, stand out.
2.
Be or do something to a greater degree.  Synonyms: exceed, outdo, outgo, outmatch, outperform, outstrip, surmount.  "She outdoes all other athletes" , "This exceeds all my expectations" , "This car outperforms all others in its class"
3.
Move past.  Synonyms: go by, go past, pass, pass by, travel by.  "He passed his professor in the hall" , "One line of soldiers surpassed the other"
4.
Be greater in scope or size than some standard.  Synonyms: exceed, transcend.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Surpass" Quotes from Famous Books



... who shall describe her transports! Never before had every fiber of her being been so penetrated with joy! A young husband, oh, a young husband! By as much as Moehrlein had once surpassed him, did Hilsenhoff now surpass Moehrlein a hundred fold. And young, young, young! She was like to fall on her face in her ecstasy. The discarded and despised Moehrlein stood by and paid, if never before, the price of his villainy. There is a contempt of man for man and a contempt of woman for woman, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... Lucy, particularly the latter, had very fine teeth. The English girl's shoulders and bust, generally, would have been more admired than those of most American—particularly than most New York—girls; but it was not possible to surpass those of Lucy. As a whole, Emily's countenance had the most spirit, Lucy's the most finesse and feeling. I make no comparison with the expression of Grace's countenance, which was altogether too remarkable for its intellectual character, to ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... the first lads at King's College. He probably came up to Cambridge with confidence that he would make a mark in examinations. But his mind, however powerful, was far from flexible. He had not the intellectual docility which often enables a clever youth to surpass rivals of much greater originality—as originality not unfrequently tempts a man outside the strait and narrow path which leads to the maximum of marks. 'I have always found myself,' says Fitzjames, in reference to his academical career, ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... old Ibrahim Jahhshan, and his numerous household, (the principal one of the Christian families,) and a troop of friends. It was not a better entertainment than that of the kaimakam yesterday; perhaps, it would not be desirable for him to surpass the constituted authority of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn

... read and re-read the letter that Lady Deppingham had written to him just before the ceremony in the cathedral at Thorberg. He knew every word that it contained; he could read it in the dark. She had said that Genevra was going into a hell that no hereafter could surpass in horrors! And that was ages ago, it seemed to him. Genevra had been a wife for nearly three months—the wife of a man she loathed; she was calling in her heart for him to come to her; she was suffering in that unspeakable hell. All this he had come to feel and shudder ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... change of character. All had views that the truth would have dimmed, and, perhaps, no single adventurer among the emigrants collected in that ship entertained either sound or reasonable notions of the mode in which his step was to be rewarded, though many may meet with a success that will surpass their brightest picture of the future. More, no ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper

... More continuous annals followed; but these are meager in contents, and make no attempt to find links of connection between events. The ancient Hebrew historians are on a much higher plane, and, apart from their religious value, far surpass all other Asiatic histories. It was in Greece, the fountain-head of science, that history, as an art, first appeared. Herodotus, born early in the fifth century B.C., first undertook to satisfy curiosity respecting the past by a more elaborate and ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... inhabited or visited lofty castles, commanding distant prospects. Even in the Latin poems of the wandering clerks, we find no traces of a distant view—of landscape properly so called; but what lies near is sometimes described with a glow and splendor which none of the knightly minstrels can surpass. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... language might be so managed as to surpass the French in expression of strong sentiments, in boldness of imagery, in harmony and variety of versification I will not be sufficiently hardy to assert. The universality of the latter must be admitted as a strong presumption of its general ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... It is impossible for any woman to surpass this girl; she is like the cat who rubs herself against your legs; a white girl with ash-colored hair, delicate in appearance, but who must have downy threads on the third phalanx of her fingers, and all along her cheeks a white down ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... "Now in Leucothoe, every former love "Is lost. Leucothoe, whom the beauteous nymph, "Eurynome, in odoriferous climes "Of Araby brought forth. Full-grown, matur'd, "Leucothoe's beauteous form no less surpass'd "Her mother's, than her mother's all beside. "Her sire, the royal Orchamus (who claim'd "A seventh descent from ancient Belus) rul'd "The Achaemenian towns. The rapid steeds "Of Phoebus pasture 'neath the western ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... been thought that my former volume (English Fairy Tales) had almost exhausted the scanty remains of the traditional folk-tales of England. Yet I shall be much disappointed if the present collection is not found to surpass the former in interest and vivacity, while for the most part it goes over hitherto untrodden ground, the majority of the tales in this book have either never appeared before, or have never been brought ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various

... is being made in the missions of Leyte—Alangalang, Carigara and others; nearly three thousand persons were baptized therein during the years 1600-1602. At Alangalang there are in the Jesuit church three choirs of Indians, who "surpass many Spaniards." The Christians at Ogmuc are exceedingly fervent; and the children instructed in the Jesuit school become, in their turn, teachers of their parents. The Indians of the Alangalang mission practice ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... original—an organ with meerschaum pipes, specie-paying banks of keys, stops calculated to produce a maximum of go, with the Rev. Mr. BELLOWS to furnish the music power and the Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER to supply the wind. Let us have an organ which will surpass all other organs in the world, whether the same be political, phrenological ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various

... Books, the truest friends of man, Fill this rolling caravan. Books to satisfy all uses, Golden lyrics of the Muses, Books on cookery and farming, Novels passionate and charming, Every kind for every need So that he who buys may read. What librarian can surpass us? ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... your letters, and says, you are a charming young lady, and surpass yourself in every letter. I told him, that he was more interested in the pleasure I took in this favour of Sir Simon's than he imagined. "As how, my dear?" said he. "A plain case, Sir," replied I: "for endeavouring to improve myself by Miss Darnford's ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... "fact" that "physiologically compared (!), the sound-speech of apes is the preparatory stage to articulate human speech." It is so simply monstrous, that even Garner's famous book of ape-speech, cannot surpass it. As a third illustration of Haeckel's method of argumentation, if we are still justified in speaking of such a thing, we may mention his assertion (p. 97) as a "certain historical fact," "That man is descended directly from the ape, and indirectly from a long line of lower ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert

... which he brought to a successful termination, his brilliant victories, a succession of "suns of Austerlitz," all combined make up the picture of a career to which Europe can offer nothing that will surpass, if indeed she has anything to bear comparison with it. After the lapse of centuries, and in spite of the indifference with which the great figures of Asiatic history have been treated, the name of Genghis preserves its magic spell. It ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... delicate beauty we have flowers that far surpass the arbutus: the columbine, for instance, jetting out of a seam in a gray ledge of rock, its many crimson and flame-colored flowers shaking in the breeze; but it is mostly for the eye. The spring-beauty, ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs

... of the number and beauty of the architectural remains in Java. They have never been popularly illustrated or described, and it will therefore take most persons by surprise to learn that they far surpass those of Central America, perhaps even those of India. To give some idea of these ruins, and perchance to excite wealthy amateurs to explore them thoroughly and obtain by photography an accurate record of their ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... incredible profusion in our monastic churches. You hear some people work themselves into a frenzy against the idolatrous worship of our forefathers; but to a monk of a great monastery his church was his one idol—to possess a church that should surpass all others in magnificence, and which could boast of some special unique glory— that seemed to a monk something worth living for. The holy rood at Bromholm, the holy thorn at Glastonbury, were possessions that brought world-wide renown to the monasteries in which they were found, and gave ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... Nothing can surpass the calm grandeur of the setting of this glorious beautiful water. Lying at the lower edge of Desolation Valley and facing stupendous mountains, the picture it presents, with Pyramid Peak reflected in its gorgeously ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... adversaries, courage being already theirs and discipline in the field having thus been added to it. Indeed, both these qualities would improve, since danger would exercise them in discipline, while their courage would be led to surpass itself by the confidence which skill inspires. The generals should be few and elected with full powers, and an oath should be taken to leave them entire discretion in their command: if they adopted this plan, their secrets ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides

... inhabiting Celebes and the Moluccas; 2. The species of New Guinea and Australia are also, though in a less degree, smaller than the nearest species or varieties of the Moluccas; 3. In the Moluccas themselves the species of Amboyna are the largest; 4. The species of Celebes equal or even surpass in size those of Amboyna; 5. The species and varieties of Celebes possess a striking character in the form of the anterior wings, different from that of the allied species and varieties of all the surrounding islands; 6. Tailed species in ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... gazed at you, and Eleanore suggested that I should lie down beside you to enjoy your astonishment when you awoke. I ought to be grateful to her for a pleasure which has turned out so pleasantly. But the beauties she discovered to me surpass all the ideas I had formed on the subject. My charming Hebe will not ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... there, and that they where very urbane and cultured. "The Men hold various positions in Manila, and certain occupations in some of the local public functions. The women make excellent lace, in which they are so skilfull that the Dutch women cannot surpass them." This is still ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... had been able to be up and around for a month before the exams and he had been slaving like a forty-mule team. Still, work as hard as he could, the boy was conscious that there were others who could surpass him. Especially there was one, a fellow called Pym Arbuthnot, ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... essentially a cattle country. She is said to surpass any other nation in her numbers of live stock. The Bovril Co. alone kills 100,000 a year. On its broad plains there are estandas, or cattle ranches, of fifty and one hundred thousand acres in extent, and on these cattle, horses and sheep are ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... years older than I; his name was Weston; he had a thin cadaverous face, a very large nose, and a very melancholy expression. I found out afterwards that he was commonly called "the clown," and was considered by boys who had been to the London theatres to surpass the best professional comic actors when he chose to put forth his powers. I did not know this then. I thought him a little formal, but particularly courteous in his manner, and not wishing to be behindhand in politeness, I replied, with as much of his style as I could ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... that mass of red, seamed, haggard faces; solemn with suffering, withered, distorted, swollen with wine, pallid from liquor; some threatening, others resigned, some sarcastic or jeering, others besotted; all rising from the midst of those terrible rags, which no designer can surpass ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... two seasons back,—are unlike any others of the Indians of the country. Ruled by a peculiar justice which takes 'a skin for a skin'—not ten or an hundred as do the Blackfeet or the Sioux,—they yet surpass all others in the cruelty of that taking. Have you not heard tales of this ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe

... uttering herself in such abandonment of all pretence as never fails to compass majesty. Into the soul of this woman in The Laboratory, Browning has penetrated till he seems to breathe with her breath. I question if there is another fictive utterance to surpass this one in authenticity. It bears the Great Seal. Not Shakespeare has outdone it in power and concentration. Every word counts, almost every comma—for, like Browning, we too seem to breathe with this woman's panting breath, our hearts to beat ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... not a bad one. Once I would have scorned The poets; but we moderns so surpass The ancients here that I am proud to write Some verses now and then. For we have learned That poetry, like all the other arts, Is pure technique: the mere ideas are nothing, The form is everything. That ennobles us And makes us artists. And ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke

... of an opinion that hostilities might be expected daily were multiplying on every side, that the people of Suffolk assembled in convention, and passed the resolutions already mentioned, which in boldness surpass ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall

... is born of ignorance. A father spends his surplus means in drink, providing little, and saving nothing; and then he dies, leaving his destitute family his lifelong victims. Can any form of cruelty surpass this? Yet this reckless course is pursued to a large extent among every class. The middle and upper classes are equally guilty with the lower class. They live beyond their means. They live extravagantly. They are ambitious of glare and glitter—frivolity and pleasure. They struggle ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles

... burst, as the country next day was informed by about two hundred reporters, The Right Honourable Gentleman resumed his seat amid loud and continuous applause, having spoken for two hours and three quarters. The Public at once declared with unanimity so remarkable that nothing would well surpass it That patriotic self-sacrifice was a Priceless National Asset: No rational person, they said, could fail to be deeply impressed by the charms Of that truly august conception, a Nation in Arms: To become expert in the use of strictly defensive weapons, ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... tells in simple language just what girls should do and not to do to preserve the health and strength, to realize the joys, and prepare for the duties of a woman's lot. It is written with a delicacy, too, which a mother could hardly surpass in talking with her ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous

... thus, I do not mean to imply that the abuse of intoxicating liquors, or the vice of drunkenness were then unknown in America. The national habits of the present day would suggest that such a change (albeit in the space of fifty years) would surpass the rapidity of movement of even that most rapidly changing nation. But the use of either beer or wine at the tables of the Philadelphians, when I first lived among them, was quite exceptional. There was a small ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... thick, and in Wales and the borders of Shropshire this formation may equal 10,000 feet, while the Silurian strata No. 3, difficult as it may be to measure them in their various foldings to the eastward, where they have been invaded by intrusive masses of granite, are supposed many times to surpass the Cambrian ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell

... have just read Mr. Buchanan's letter in the Times of to-day. Mr. Buchanan is, I believe, an imaginative writer. I am not acquainted with his works, but nothing in the way of fiction he has yet achieved can well surpass his account of my opinions and of the ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... details of the fairy-tales true, which abound in every land, the cruelty meted out to the child suspected of being a changeling would surpass human belief. Hartland enumerates the following procedures as having been in use, according to legend, to determine the justice of the suspicion: Flinging the child on a dung-heap; putting in the oven; holding a red-hot shovel before the child's face; ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... were shot and villages burned and where unheard of exactions were imposed on the conquered whom the conqueror sought to wrong and weaken for a long period of time. A new war in Central Europe will be a second edition of the same struggle but by how much will it not surpass the former wars by its magnitude and by its length and by the means ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... and Montmedy—the very gentlemen who were to fight beside him that evening—and one Vilmorin, as arrant a coxcomb and poltroon as could be found in France. With my beaver cocked at the back of my head, and a general bearing that for aggressiveness would be hard to surpass, I strode up to their table, and stood for a moment surveying them with an insolent stare that made them pause in their conversation. They raised their noble heads and bestowed upon me a look of haughty and disdainful ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... headlong into nought, plunging upon sheer hard extinction; I have come, as it were, not to know, died, as it were; ceased from knowing; surpassed myself. What can I say more, except that I know what it is to surpass myself? ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence

... Blackheath Park, but amid the precious hours that could be snatched from most active engagements in Wood Street. At either, authors and artists are constantly met; and the brief snatches alluded to are often so heartily occupied as to rival, if not surpass, the slower motions of the more prolonged entertainments. Both may boast of "the feast of reason and the flow of soul," and a crowning increase to these enjoyments is derived from the circumstance, that Mr Bennoch's connexions with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... and the king soon married another wife, who was very beautiful, but so proud that she could not bear to think that any one could surpass her. She had a magical looking-glass, to which she used to go and gaze upon herself in it, ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg

... countries have at least one quarter of their population urban: England and Wales, Scotland, Belgium, Saxony, Holland, Prussia, and France. The most urban of our states, however, such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York, surpass all European countries in the number of their population living in cities, with the exception of England and Wales. This again is due to the fact that certain of our states have specialized in manufacturing ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood

... following verbs in the indicative mood, present tense, second person singular: move, strive, please, reach, confess, fix, deny, survive, know, go, outdo, close, lose, pursue, defend, surpass, conquer, deliver, enlighten, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... to what the planter was saying. I could scarcely believe the testimony of my ears. Was it really a man professing to be a Christian thus talking, thus boasting of the most horrible cruelties which even the fiercest savages could not surpass? ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... with woods of several colours, like but above the best cabinet-work I ever saw; his grotto and vault, with his bottles of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of all sorts; his bath at the top of the house, good pictures, and his manner of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I did see of one ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... and that one of them Did compass in the other's beam; and both In such sort whirl around, that each should tend With opposite motion and, conceiving thus, Of that true constellation, and the dance Twofold, that circled me, he shall attain As 't were the shadow; for things there as much Surpass our usage, as the swiftest heav'n Is swifter than the Chiana. There was sung No Bacchus, and no Io Paean, but Three Persons in the Godhead, and in one Substance that ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... was exhibited at the Salon of 1861, the public, of course, passed it by to gaze at the "Phryne" of Gerome. Millet has doubtless painted better pictures, but for direct simple pathos it would be hard to surpass this. ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various

... evolution can never be written and the name of Ingersoll left out. In his own splendid personality he had no rivals, no competitors. He stands alone; and no name in liberal thought can ever eclipse his. He prepared the way for the thinkers and the doers who shall come after, and in insight surpass him, reaching spiritual heights which he, perhaps, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... partook of a freer, a more unceremonious, nature than that which he had adopted towards Madam Manilov. And here I should like to assert that, howsoever much, in certain respects, we Russians may be surpassed by foreigners, at least we surpass them in adroitness of manner. In fact the various shades and subtleties of our social intercourse defy enumeration. A Frenchman or a German would be incapable of envisaging and understanding all its peculiarities and differences, for his tone in speaking to a millionaire differs but little ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol

... undisturbed enjoyment of her gloomy reflections. The unfortunate child of Monteblanco had now the most unequivocal proof of her lover's baseness and treachery: Gomez Arias was faithless, but what an aggravation of guilt attached to his infidelity! His cold, heartless villainy seemed to surpass all power of conception, and Theodora for some time remained like one striving to recall the fleeting illusion of a horrid dream. Then she clasped her hands fearfully over her swollen eyelids; a few large ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... out, and ten thousand sapphires too, all glistening gloriously in the new light. The jasper tents on the everlasting hunting grounds, and the motionless streams were brightning with living flame. Thousands of Indians, strong and fair, in countless groupings, seemed, to surpass even the sky itself in their glittering ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith

... and supported by Lucidantus and his Thirteen Friends, was published by W. Brown, and began its course Wednesday, Nov. 27, 1811. It aimed to surpass The Spirit of the Reviews, the Dramatic Censor and the Port Folio, but it is believed to have made only two numbers. The purpose of the magazine was defined in the second number, December 11, 1811: "We propose to develop to our readers the ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth

... darkness is the cereus, the blossoms of which begin to open at seven or eight o'clock in the evening, and are fully out when midnight comes. Before daylight arrives the flowers have generally decayed, so rapid is their progress. So huge are these that they quite surpass the largest blooms found on the sun-flower, being nearly three feet in circumference. The outer portion is dark brown; the inner shades range from yellow to a pure white. When a dozen or so happen to expand at the same time the effect is startling. They also give ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... are as keen as the brains of your masters. In swiftness and strength ye surpass them by far, Ye've brave hearts that teach ye to laugh at disasters, Ye vastly outnumber your tyrants in war. Why, then, like cowards stand. Using not brain or hand, Thankful, like dogs, when they throw ye a bone? What right have they ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker

... idea firmly impressed that we have a better proposition for the future right here, that we have right here in the North the building material in the shagbark hickory and the black walnut for a nut industry that will rival or even surpass the enviable position the pecan holds today. Was I correct or was I wrong? A second trip last winter has served only to imbed that idea into ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting • Various

... tramper—not even excepting Brother Weston—who has not at some time or another suffered from sore heels, does not exist. The tramp's feet are his means of locomotion; on their condition he bestows an anxiety and care which far surpass that of the man in the automobile, with all his complicated machinery ...
— A Tramp Through the Bret Harte Country • Thomas Dykes Beasley

... transferring her jewels from the trays of the safe to leathern cases. She looked quite as Mrs. De Peyster should have looked: with an aura of high dignity that a sixty-year-old dowager of the first water could not surpass, yet with a freshness of person that (had it not been for her dignity) might have made her early forties seem a ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott

... to market. And then, on Sunday, in an age when congregational singing was as yet but little known, the Brethren made the rafters ring with the sound of united praise. "Your churches," wrote the learned Esrom Rdinger, "surpass all others in singing. For where else are songs of praise, of thanksgiving, of prayer and instruction so often heard? Where is there better singing? The newest edition of the Bohemian Hymn-book, with its seven hundred and forty-three hymns, is an evidence of the multitude ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton

... interesting birds in South America. One tree-creeper only, Furnarius rufus, the oven-bird par excellence, has been mentioned, on account of its wonderful architecture, in almost every general work of natural history published during the present century; yet the oven-bird does not surpass, or even equal in interest, many others in this family ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... successes over our native allies induced the reigning king of Ashantee, Coffee Calcalli, to hold the British power in contempt. The barbarous customs of the Ashantees almost surpass conception. Their religion is the grossest fetishism. Human life is utterly disregarded; and thousands of slaves are yearly slaughtered as sacrifices by the king, their bodies being thrown into a vast ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... no wonder that the people should have regarded the railroads as fanciful schemes. No one could then have dreamed how rapidly they would increase and multiply, and that in less than fifty years they should so far surpass the canals in service to the public that some of these would be abandoned by the state, and become grass-grown ditches hardly distinguishable in their look of ancient ruin from the works of the Mound ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... nature could surpass the affection which the female kangaroo manifests for her young. There is something absolutely touching in the anxious solicitude displayed by the dam while the young ones are at play. On the least alarm the youngster instantly ensconces ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various

... hae done their best, Like true men o' Strabogie, We 'll stop a while and tak' a rest, And tipple out a cogie. Come now, my lads, and tak your glass, And try ilk ither to surpass, In wishing health to every lass, To dance the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... that on that occasion he should be glad to see a magnificent Court; and he himself, who for a long time had worn only the most simple habits, ordered the most superb. This was enough; no one thought of consulting his purse or his state; everyone tried to surpass his neighbour in richness and invention. Gold and silver scarcely sufficed: the shops of the dealers were emptied in a few days; in a word luxury the most unbridled reigned over Court and city, for the fete had a huge crowd of spectators. Things went to such a point, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... said that as a nation the English have no gift for pageants. Yet every now and then—as no doubt in the Elizabethan mask—they show a strange felicity in the art. Certainly the dance that followed would have been difficult to surpass even in the ripe days and motherlands of pageantry. To the left, a long line, consisting mainly of young girls in their first bloom, dressed as Gainsborough and his great contemporaries delighted to paint these flowers of England—the folds of plain white muslin crossed over the young ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... foundations of the Tara banquet-hall are to be clearly traced to this day—an oblong earthwork over seven hundred feet long by ninety wide, with the twelve doors still distinctly marked; as for the brooches and torques of gold, some we have surpass in magnificence anything here described, and their artistic beauty is eloquent of the refinement of spirit that conceived and the skill that fashioned them. Spear-heads, too, are of beautiful bronze-gold, with tracings round the socket ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... himself to the imitation of an individual, as he never proposes to surpass, so he is not likely to equal, the object of imitation. He professes only to follow, and he that follows ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds

... woman had clad herself, since her retreat, in the garments of former days; and the truth must be told that they did not add to the dignity of her appearance. Probably no costume devisable could surpass in ignoble ugliness the attire of an English working-class widow when she appears in the streets. The proximity of Alice, always becomingly clad, drew attention to the poor mother's plebeian guise. Richard, watching her enter the cab, felt for the first time a distinct ...
— Demos • George Gissing

... repeated his wife, scornfully, while he replied, "Yes, handsomer than either of our daughters, and with the same advantages, I've no doubt she'd surpass ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... fly, still northward go, Till he who conquers every foe, The mighty Canute, came to land, Far in the north on Throndhjem's strand. There this great king of Jutland race, Whose deeds and gifts surpass in grace All other kings, bestowed the throne Of Norway on ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson

... sounds like the raving of a madman, chained by a chain that he cannot break. If I had the strength of the mountains, I could not move you. I know it. All things I have but this—this love of yours that you have given to another. I would I had it! I should have the strength to surpass the deeds of men, had I your love! Who is this whom you love? A captain? A warrior? I tell you because you have so honoured him, so raised him upon the throne of your heart, I will honour him too, and I will raise him above all men, and all the nation shall ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford

... the bough, remain'd as one Assail'd by terror, and the sage replied: "If he, O injur'd spirit! could have believ'd What he hath seen but in my verse describ'd, He never against thee had stretch'd his hand. But I, because the thing surpass'd belief, Prompted him to this deed, which even now Myself I rue. But tell me, who thou wast; That, for this wrong to do thee some amends, In the upper world (for thither to return Is granted him) thy fame he may revive." "That pleasant word of ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante

... were of immense size, and unequalled in beauty and grace, as the workmen endeavored to make the execution surpass the design in beauty; but what was most remarkable was the speed with which they were built. All these edifices, each of which one would have thought it would have taken many generations to complete, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various

... example) the thirteenth chapter of Darwin's "Descent of Man," he goes into the woods to look about for himself. He expects to find here and there two or three songsters, each in turn doing his utmost to surpass the brilliancy and power of the other's music; while a feminine auditor sits in full view, preparing to render her verdict, and reward the successful competitor with her own precious self. This would be a pretty picture. Unfortunately, ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... appearance of numerous lights situated so low in the water, when seen at the distance of two or three miles, as putting him in mind of Milton's description of the fiends in the lower regions, adding, 'for it seems greatly to surpass Will-o'- the-Wisp, or any of those earthly spectres of which we have so ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson

... if pushing all aside from his mind: "This will at any rate make a chapter of my commentaries. I am writing them in the style of Caesar, whom I hope to surpass in this. At present, I have carried them as far as the sieges of Parma and La Mirandole by the armies of the Holy Father and the Emperor." With this he pointed at a pile of manuscript that lay on the table, as he added, with true ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats

... that lady, "I reckon we do. And my Belle is so fond of him. She thinks there is no one equal to Mr. Whipple. Judge, you must come round to a family supper. Belle will surpass herself." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the Aldine Press. 1519. 8vo. 3 vols. Surely this copy is the ne plus ultra of a VELLUM ALDUS! In size, condition, and colour, nothing can surpass it. When I say this, I am not unmindful of the Royal copies here, and more particularly of the Pindar and Ovid in St. James's Place. But, in truth, there reigns throughout the rectos and reverses of each of these volumes, such a mellow, quiet, and genuine tone of colour, that the most ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... nearly double those which prevailed during the German rgime. Besides, it was an easy task to prove from the figures which I had printed from year to year in my "Review of the New York Musical Season," that, in order to surpass the German record with their last month, Abbey, Schoeffel & Grau would have had to show average nightly receipts of over $9,000, whereas only once had they, in a spirit of boastfulness, claimed that as much as $11,000 had been taken at a single performance, and that ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... becomes of man after death, we do not see that a highly educated European, left to his unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot Indian. Not a single one of the many sciences in which we surpass the Blackfoot Indians throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after the animal life is extinct. In truth all the philosophers, ancient and modern, who have attempted, without the help of revelation to prove the immortality of man, from Plato down ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... cavaliers was one named Tarfe, a man of fierce and daring spirit and a giant in size, who sought to surpass his fellows in acts of audacity. In one of his sallies towards the Christian camp this bold cavalier leaped his steed over the barrier, galloped inward close to the royal quarters, and launched his spear with such strength that it quivered in the earth close ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris

... does the fly, until he is fast: such is the eloquence of C.C. Burleigh. As a debater he is unquestionably the first on the Anti-slavery platform. If he did not speak so fast, he would equal Wendell Phillips; if he did not reason his subject out of existence, he would surpass him. However, one would have to travel over many miles, and look in the faces of many men, before he would find one who has made more personal sacrifices, or done more to bring about the Emancipation of the American Slaves, than ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown

... i' t' sky at bends ower thee, There's a sweetness i' t' green o' thy grass, There's a glory i' t' waves at embrace thee, An' thy beauty there's naan can surpass. Thy childer enrich iv'ry valley, An' add beauty to iv'ry glen, For tha's mothered a race o' fair women, An' ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... articles of clothing. At the inner end of the cave a large fireplace and chimney had been rudely built, and in this was roaring the pine-wood fire which had lighted them in, and which caused the whole interior to glow with a vivid glare that seemed to surpass ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... seven hundred inhabitants, among them many merchants from China, and also several Sanguelos, who were partly Moors, or Malays probably, and partly heathen. The Sanguelos were especially clever in inventing and making all manner, of things, so that few or no Christians could surpass them. They excelled in drawing and embroidering upon satin, silk or lawn, representing either beasts, fowls, fish, or worms, in the most natural manner. They also worked in silk, ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith

... praise. Refined men and women have remembered these early days, when their race was in its prime, as a lost paradise which they would regain by designing and even weaving tapestries and muslins; experimenting in vats with dyes to rival Tyrian purple; printing and binding by hand books that surpass the best of the Aldine, and Elzevirs; carving in old oak; hammering brass; forging locks, irons, and candlesticks; becoming artists in burned wood and leather; seeking old effects of simplicity and solidity ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... not—such unfaith would surpass the limits of even Spanish treachery! And you would not—it would please you better if he never set eyes upon my face again! I only wonder that you should ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock

... by the power of fascinated terror. The beauty was still there, indeed, but the agony, the blind passion, and the awful vindictiveness displayed upon those quivering features, and in the tortured look of the upturned eyes, were such as surpass ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... the great reigns of former days, if not by his victories, at least by the excellence of his administration and his activity. He planned the erection at Karnak of a hypostyle hall in front of the pylons of Ramses II., which should equal, if not surpass, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 8 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... the center of this Place, the pride of Paris, the scene of its most triumphant festivities and its most unutterable woe, vast scaffolds had been reared, and they were burdened with fire-works, intended to surpass in brilliancy and sublimity any spectacle of the kind earth had ever before witnessed. Suddenly a bright flame was seen, a shriek was heard, and the whole scaffolding, by some accidental spark, was enveloped in a sheet of fire. Then ensued such a scene as no pen can describe and no imagination paint. ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... met a man whose whole heart was more given to the desire of advancing the cause of his Saviour than was Master Overton. Scarcely even did John Foxe surpass him. I have said little of that good minister. He had now obtained, we heard, a church in Wiltshire; and frequently Master Gresham used to send him money wherewith he might help his poorer neighbours. ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... court, surrounded by all the pomp and ceremony of the Middle Ages. He saw how hard was the part he had to play, and he knew very well how much a nation needs glory to make it forget liberty. Hence a perpetual effort to make every day outshine the one before, and first to equal, then to surpass, the splendors of the oldest and most famous dynasties. This insatiable thirst for action and for renown was to be the source of Napoleon's strength and also of his weakness. But only a few clear-sighted men made these reflections ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand

... novelists of Siena, Fortini and Sermini, so lovingly depicted in their tales. Of literature absorbing in itself the specific character of a country, and conveying it to the reader less by description than by sustained quality of style, I know none to surpass Fortini's sketches. The prospect from Belcaro is one of the finest to be seen in Tuscany. The villa stands at a considerable elevation, and commands an immense extent of hill and dale. Nowhere, except Maremma-wards, a level plain. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... that can surpass the Geranium for profusion of bloom, brilliancy and variety of color, and general adaptability for house culture. The following ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan

... minds by a literary education. But the weight of this censure is gradually growing less, by the contrary proof to the hundreds of visitors who flock into our school, and who are not at all sparing of their high encomiums upon it. It is conducted partially on the Lancasterian system, and is said to surpass any of the common schools about us. Our school-room is furnished with books and apparatus of a superior kind, which, we presume, is not equalled by any school in the country, save the one among our people at Canterbury, which, perhaps, is not ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... grand head, but very ill-balanced, and the features of the face are coarse; although, to be sure, nothing can surpass the depth of meaning in his eyes, and the unutterable dreamy luxury ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various

... their way into the Republican column. On the other hand Bryan's hold on the South and West was almost equally strong. Never before had any presidential candidate received so great a vote and not for twenty years did a Democratic candidate surpass it. Moreover, although the Democratic vote on the Atlantic seaboard was less than that received by Cleveland in 1892, Bryan's support in the Middle West showed considerable gains over the earlier year, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... the witch-glance o' thy e'e, Though few for that surpass ye, O! That maks ye aye sae dear to me, My bonnie black-e'ed lassie, O! It 's no the whiteness o' thy skin, It 's no love's dimple on thy chin; Its a' thy modest worth within, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... tropical ocean is extraordinarily rich and varied. The sea birds are distinguished by their size, and beauty of plumage, and greatly surpass those that belong to the north. Thousands of flying fish spring above the surface, in order to escape some lurking enemy below, only to find their death on the deck of the ship, but oftener to fall an easy prey to some rapacious bird. Nothing can equal the gay colors of the Bonito and Dorado, ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... slit was made, or two tapestries joined at this spot. Set Gothic furniture scantily about such a room, a coffer or two, some high-backed chairs, a generous table, and there is a room which the art of to-day with its multiple ingenuity cannot surpass for beauty ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee

... simplicity the inhabitants originally possessed. From Ischl we took a road through the forests to St. Wolfgang, on the lake of the same name. The last part of the way led along the banks of the lake, disclosing some delicious views. These Alpine lakes surpass any scenery I have yet seen. The water is of the most beautiful green, like a sheet of molten beryl, and the cloud-piercing mountains that encompass them shut out the sun for nearly half the day. St. Wolfgang is a lovely village in a cool and quiet nook at the foot of the ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... no attention to mere detail, but circulated the most startling rumors as to the excessive amount of brain-work Mopsey Dowd was doing on the new play, which was to be his masterpiece, and to far surpass anything Buffalo Bill or Sixteen-string ...
— Left Behind - or, Ten Days a Newsboy • James Otis

... assumed the position of Praktikant at the Kassel Landesbibliothek. Here he was able to devote a large part of his attention to the study of Old English, acquiring a familiarity with the poetry of that tongue which it has seldom been the fortune of a scholar to surpass. He formed the design of editing and translating the entire body of Old English poetry and appending to it a complete glossary which should not only give the meanings of the words, but instance every occurrence of the word. This design he carried out between the ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker

... extreme is the walk through Savernake Forest which, if it is not to be compared with the New Forest either in size or wildness, does in one particular surpass the latter, namely in its magnificent vistas and beech avenues. The central walk between Marlborough and Savernake is unsurpassed in England and probably in Europe. It leads to Tottenham House, situated at the eastern extremity and belonging to the Marquis of Ailesbury. This mansion stands ...
— Wanderings in Wessex - An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter • Edric Holmes

... admirable essay in regard to the superior education of the women of England. The women of England, as he took it, did not equal the women of America in their average education, although they did surpass them in that physical vigor of constitution which, in the end, gave greater power of action and thought. Whilst the English woman was, by the necessity of the case, taught more of the modern languages, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... labor-power of individuals varies very much in different nations.(255) The reason of this is, in part, doubtless a difference in natural endowments. Thus, for instance, no people surpass the English and Anglo-American in energy, none the German in intelligence in work or the French in taste. Where we can assume that the same meaning is attached to the expression, "military capacity," by the different ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher

... the preceding queries of the lover, and secondly, that I might definitely settle the rhythm, the metre, and the length and general arrangement of the stanza, as well as graduate the stanzas which were to precede, so that none of them might surpass this in rhythmical effect. Had I been able in the subsequent composition to construct more vigorous stanzas, I should without scruple have purposely enfeebled them so as not to interfere with the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... would seem altogether incredible, had we not other instances—such as Bidder's and Colburn's calculating feats, Morphy's blindfold chess-play, etc.—of the amazing degree in which one brain may surpass all others in some special quality, though perhaps, in other respects, not exceptionally powerful, ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various

... shall be able to stem the rapid course of these two heroes, if an army of one hundred thousand of our best troops—posted between two roads, trebly entrenched, and performing their duty as well as brave men could do—were not able to stop them one day? Will you not, then, own with me, that they surpass all the heroes of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 2 of 8 • Various

... shook his head. 'Alas! Mr. Redgauntlet,' he said, 'I am ashamed to say, that in zeal you surpass us all. But I will not refuse this mission, provided you will permit Sir Arthur, your ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... individuality is, however, only the one supreme quality. It consummates all other qualities, but does not consume them. All the others are there, all the time. And only at his maximum does an individual surpass all his derivative elements, and become purely himself. And most people never get there. In his own pure individuality a man surpasses his father and mother, and is utterly unknown to them. "Woman, what have I to do with thee?" But this does not alter the fact ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence



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