"Supererogation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Miss Landon by a comparison with La Rochefoucault; and Don Trueba, with Pigault le Brun. This is a refinement in cruelty. It is twining the rack with flowers; and hanging a man with a cord of gold. The sentence of the reviewer should be "Yea, yea; and nay, nay!" A Barmecide's feast of fame is a supererogation of malice. We hold that all authors so derided have a right to call upon their critics to make good their words; and build up the visionary castles of their Fata Morgana, (like London Bridge in the nursery song) with "gravel and stone;" or rather, "with silver and gold." A heavy mulct ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 564, September 1, 1832 • Various
... at her. She made him understand why there is more joy in heaven over one sinner saved, than over ninety and nine just persons. He could understand just how welcome to a bored heaven that sinner must be! And think of that poor girl living with this human work of supererogation! ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... me came at the same time as the large one for Papa. When you first told me that you had had the Duke's picture framed, and had given it to me, I felt half provoked with you for performing such a work of supererogation, but now, when I see it again, I cannot but acknowledge that, in so doing, you were felicitously inspired. It is his very image, and, as Papa said when he saw it, scarcely in the least like the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... stick, and so on, since they were empowered to accept their livelihood from those to whom they preached: wherefore He goes on to say: "For the laborer is worthy of his hire." Nor is it a sin, but a work of supererogation for a preacher to take means of livelihood with him, without accepting supplies from those to whom he preaches; as Paul ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... that the Cardinal was a saint; I am sure he was not a prig. For all his works of supererogation, his life was a life of pomp and luxury, compared to the proper saint's life. He wore no hair shirt; I doubt if he knew the taste of the Discipline. He had his weaknesses, his foibles—even, if you ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... overmeasure[obs3], oversupply, overflow; inundation &c. (water) 348; avalanche. accumulation &c. (store) 636; heap &c. 72; drug, drug in the market; glut; crowd; burden. excess; surplus, overplus[obs3]; epact[obs3]; margin; remainder &c. 40; duplicate; surplusage[obs3], expletive; work of supererogation; bonus, bonanza. luxury; intemperance &c. 954; extravagance &c. (prodigality) 818; exorbitance, lavishment[obs3]. pleonasm &c. (diffuseness) 573; too many irons in the fire; embarras de richesses[Fr]. V. superabound, overabound[obs3]; know no bounds, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... made to God to avoid mortal sin is not a vow, in the strict sense of the word; or rather such a promise is outside the ordinary province of the vow, which naturally embraces works of supererogation and counsel. It is unnecessary and highly imprudent to make such promises under vow. A promise to commit sin is a blasphemous outrage. If what we promise to do is something indifferent, vain and useless, opposed to evangelical counsels or generally less agreeable to God than ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... prettiest creatures I have ever seen as far as their faces go; but they are short and thin, and have no figures at all, either in height or breadth, and pinch their waists and feet most cruelly, which certainly, considering how small they are by nature, is a work of supererogation, and does not tend to produce in them a state of grace.... We act every night this week, and as we are obliged to rehearse every morning, of course I have no time for any occupations but my strictly professional ones. I do not approve of this quantity ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... word, shook the crumbs from her lap, and was turning into the house, when he witholds her a minute in a perfectly altered fashion, saying, "There be some works, mistress, our confessors tell us be works of supererogation ... is not that y^e word? I learn a long one now and then ... such as be setting food before a full man, or singing to a deaf one, or buying for one's pigs a silver trough, or, for the matter of that, casting pearls before ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... But on the other hand, it must be remembered that her standard of exactingness was 'high, and some of the things that in her eyes it was merely culpable to leave undone might be counted by others among virtues of supererogation. Indeed, it is within the limits of possibility that a philanthropist wrapped in over-much conscious virtue might imagine her cold to the objects proposed, when she only failed to see uncommon merit in their pursuit. No one, however, ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... her, laid their mats upon her deck, secured the boats astern, and sailed away in search of other plunder. They kept little discipline aboard their ships. What work had to be done they did, but works of supererogation they despised and rejected as a shade unholy. The night watches were partly orgies. While some slept, the others fired guns and drank to the health of their fellows. By the light of the binnacle, or by the light ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... the laws require is by most people thought a work of supererogation; and to slip through the grate of the law has ever exercised the abilities of adventurers, who wish to get rich the shortest way. Knavery without personal danger is an art brought to great perfection by the ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... the great importance attached to burial ceremonies have formed an almost invariable part of all works relating to the different peoples of our globe; in fact no particular portion of ethnologic research has claimed more attention. In view of these facts, it might seem almost a work of supererogation to continue a further examination of the subject, for nearly every author in writing of our Indian tribes makes some mention of burial observances; but these notices are scattered far and wide on the sea of this ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow
... of sins and everlasting life, and in addition help others to obtain salvation by giving them the benefit of your extra work-holiness." Monks, friars, and all the rest of them brag that besides the ordinary requirements common to all Christians, they do the works of supererogation, i.e., the performance of more than is required. This is ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... fast, it will do for me as well," said Honor, lying comfortably on the grass with her hands clasped under her head, and watching Chatty's rapidly growing stocking. "It's a 'work of supererogation', and that always leaves a little virtue over, to count ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the whole to conduct with loyalty and propriety the affairs of their country, while they kept within the beaten channel, they were not born to grapple with arduous situations. They had not that commanding spirit of adventure, which leads a man into the path of supererogation and voluntary service: they had not that firm and collected fortitude which induces a man to look danger in the face, to encounter it in all its force, and to drive it from all its retrenchments. They were particularly attached to the patronage, which is usually annexed to their ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... North, visitations of that sort during the summer were to be expected. The troops bore the discomfort of cold and wet clothes uncomplainingly, waiting for daybreak, and the tardy sun, to get dry and warm. Bugle calls were a work of supererogation on the morning of Wednesday, 24th August, everybody having been astir long before reveille. It had been given out in general orders—one of those gracious niceties of military courtesy never exhibited to ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... poet, and therefore all his care is to choose out such as will serve, like a wooden leg, to piece out a maimed verse that wants a foot or two; and if they will but rhyme now and then into the bargain, or run upon a letter, it is a work of supererogation. ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... with the savages during the time he was in the service of the Pony Express would require many pages to recite, and as there is naturally a repetition in the manner of all attacks and escapes in his struggles with the Indians of the Great Plains and mountains, it would perhaps be but supererogation to tell them all without ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... no Southerner before the war, and carried his stanch, Calvinistic prejudices to such extent that he seemed to shrink from closer contact even then. The war was holy. The hand of the Lord would surely smite the slave-holding arch rebel, which was perhaps why the Covenanter thought it work of supererogation to raise his own. He finished as he began the war, in the unalterable conviction that the Southern President, his cabinet and all his leading officers should be hung, and their lands confiscated to the state—or its representatives. He had been given a commission ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... had not done their work, for they had whitewashed the school with a thoroughness even Store Thompson's wife would never have attempted. The only fault was the lack of discrimination shown by the decorators. Some critics might have considered the coating of the floor and the desks a work of supererogation. But the boys were not stingy; they whitewashed everything with an impartial and lavish generosity; the walls, the ceiling, the blackboard, the furniture. Yes, even the stove and stovepipes were rubbed until they fairly radiated ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... your life as for the unstable quality of his political opinions, the law shall deal with him—conclusively." He sighed. "It always pains me to proceed to extremes against a man of his stamp. To deprive a fool of his head seems a work of supererogation." ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... sight it may appear to be a work of supererogation, to carry the Canal over that part of the Isthmus which is traversed by navigable rivers, it is by many engineers considered preferable in forming a Canal, to use the rivers in its vicinity only for the purpose of supplying the Canal with ...
— A Succinct View of the Importance and Practicability of Forming a Ship Canal across the Isthmus of Panama • H. R. Hill
... 1245) was almost purely theological. BONAVENTURA (1221-74) in his double character of rigid Franciscan and mystic, was led far beyond the Aristotelian Ethics. The mean between excess and defect is a very good rule for the affairs of life, but the true Christian is bound besides to works of supererogation: first of all, to take on the condition of poverty; while the state of mystic contemplation remains as a still higher goal for the few. ALBERT THE GREAT (1193-1280), the most learned and complete commentator of Aristotle that had yet ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... were pitched on Cowley Marsh, and I never was present at his discourses, at his humorous prophecies of England's fate, which are coming all too true. So many weary lectures had to be attended, could not be "cut," that we abstained from lectures of supererogation, so to speak. For the rest there was no "literary movement" among contemporary undergraduates. They read for the schools, and they rowed and played cricket. We had no poets, except the stroke of the Corpus boat, Mr. Bridges, ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... pictures, lights, altars, incense, vestments, masses, beads, wayside shrines, monasteries, nunneries, celibacy, fastings, vigils, retreats, pilgrimages, mendicant vows, shorn heads, orders, habits, uniforms, nuns, convents, purgatory, saintly and priestly intercession, indulgences, works of supererogation, pope, archbishops, abbots, abbesses, monks, neophytes, relics and relic-worship, exclusive burial-ground, etc., ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... SUPEREROGATION, WORKS OF, name given in the Roman Catholic theology to works or good deeds performed by saints over and above what is required for their own salvation, and the merit of which is held to be transferable to others ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... does he give for this work of supererogation? None. He does not (as we shall see more fully by and by) take the slightest notice of Mackintosh's history, no more than if it had never existed. Has he produced a new fact? Not one. Has he discovered any new materials? None, as far as we can judge, but the collections of Fox and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the play. 'Oh!' he said, 'he did not know: he had only seen a little man strut about the stage and repeat 7956 words one hand to his forehead, and seeming mightily delighted, called out, 'Ay, indeed! And pray, was he found to be correct?' This was the supererogation of literal matter-of-fact curiosity. Jedediah Buxton's counting the number of words was idle enough; but here was a fellow who wanted some one to count them over again to see if ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... gave himself to all the delightful bye-tasks: the works of supererogation, the excursions into side paths, the niggling with proofs, the toying with style, the potterings and polishings, the ruminations, and rewritings and refinements which make the joy of the man of letters. For ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of the orthodox arch, that I originally drew attention to them; and, in spite of my longing for peace, I am truly obliged to Mr. Gladstone for compelling me to place my case before the public once more. It may be thought that this is a work of supererogation by those who are aware that my essay is the subject of attack in a work so largely circulated as the "Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture"; and who may possibly, in their simplicity, assume that it must be truthfully set forth ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... Tommy Little was when he so terribly annoyed Mr. Pelby. Now, as to Henry's accomplishments, they were many and various. He could be a good boy when he felt in a pleasant humour, and could storm, and fret, and pout in a way so well understood by all parents, that it would be a work of supererogation to describe it here. But strange mutation of disposition!—Mr. Pelby could bear these fits of perverseness with a philosophy that would have astonished even himself, could he have for a moment realized his former state ...
— Home Scenes, and Home Influence - A Series of Tales and Sketches • T. S. Arthur
... causes which help to create this class of street Arabs, whom it is almost a labor of supererogation to describe, especially to those who daily hear the familiar cries, "Telegram!" "News!" "Telegram!" "New-es!" "Mail 'n' Express!" uttered chiefly by young girls, all over the town. Pretty girls they are, too, many of ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... struck, Loo turned to him with a laugh and a shake of the head as if the refusal were so self-evident that to put it into words were a work of supererogation. ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... at last, than he was, when he first set up for himself. Nay, doth not the blot of his ill living betwixt his first and his last, lie as a blemish upon him, unless he should redeem himself also by works of supererogation, from the scandal that justice may lay at ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... remembrance of the Yorkshire pudding, vulgarly called choke-dog, of which you were obliged to eat a pound before you were allowed a slice of beef, and of which, if you swallowed half that quantity, you thought cooks and oxen mere works of supererogation, and totally useless on the face of the earth? Has the fool lost all recollection of the prayers in yon cold, wet, clay-floored cellar, proudly denominated the chapel? has he forgot the cuffs from the senior boys, the pinches from the second master? and, in fine, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various
... Useful Knowledge,' could only have been induced to investigate the intellectual status of the 'rising generation' of our village, there is little room to doubt that, as they are not deemed advocates for works of supererogation, they would long ago have appreciated the expediency of disbanding said society. I imagine Tennyson is a clairvoyant, and was looking at the young people of this vicinage, when ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... with a luxuriance unrivalled on the continent. Of the tract embraced between the Little Blue and the Republican Fork of the Kaw this is especially true. The climate is so mild and uniform that cattle may be kept at pasture the whole year round. Haymaking and the building of barns are works of supererogation. The wild grass cures spontaneously on the ground. To provide shelter against exceptional cases of climatic rigor,—an unusual "cold snap," or a fall of snow which lies more than a day or two,—the ranchero constructs for his cattle a simple corral, or, at most, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... I cannot help thinking their services are a matter of supererogation, for a recalcitrant Irish tenant in the South and West needs instruction in ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... no appointment in a military character, but resides peaceably assisting the government of Leulumoenga in their work, for Brandeis is a quiet, sensible gentleman." And then he promised to send the vice-consul to "get information of the captain's doings": surely supererogation of deceit. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
