"Outdo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is so good it's positively sinful. The French, who outdo us in both cooking and sin, make one of their own in the form of fried fingers of stale bread doused in an 'arf and 'arf Welsh Rabbit and Fondue melting of Gruyere, that serves as a liaison to further sandwich ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... only part of the state where almost simultaneously one may enjoy the rare combination of the unobstructed ocean, an inland sea, and trout streams lined with giant firs and cedars, which all but encroach upon the dominions of the waters. Here the oyster, the clam and the crab seemingly try to outdo one another and the mighty forest, in yielding splendid profits to the people, who lend every encouragement to the ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... wide open. His confidence in his beloved and stately master never once faltered. He knew he would never suffer Felix Grundy to outdo him in the simple matter of ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... opposition which he had made to King Henry's measures was directed only against the peace which had been made with France, and which he had opposed for political considerations alone, but that, so far as the marriage with Margaret was concerned, he approved it. So he prepared to outdo, if possible, all the rest of the nobility in the magnificence of the welcome which he was to give her on her arrival in London. He possessed a palace at Greenwich, on the Thames, a short distance below London, and he sent an invitation to Margaret to come there on the last ...
— Margaret of Anjou - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Wishnewsky, who considered this conversation as his cherished own, and saw it being torn from him, determined to outdo the favoured Morris ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... must know how to soothe and lull the monsters that guard, and how to address and gain the fair that keep, the golden fleece. These are the arts and the accomplishments absolutely necessary for a foreign minister; in which it must be owned, to our shame, that most other nations outdo the English; and, 'caeteris paribus', a French minister will get the better of an English one at any third court in Europe. The French have something more 'liant', more insinuating and engaging in their manner, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... warrior, whom weakness and decrepitude had compelled to throw down the bow and the spear, and the eagle-eyed boy, who was fast gaining upon the ripened period when he should take them up, did each his part in celebrating the feats which the one had equalled, and the other hoped to outdo. The wife, with a proud mien, came forward to meet the embraces of her renowned husband; the timid maiden, with a downcast eye, to steal a look at her valiant lover. Those who had lost friends came eagerly to enquire their fate, and to know whether they had died like ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... bargain we thought fit; only William said he had promised, in our name, that we should use no violence with them, nor detain any of the vessels after we had done trading with them. I told him we would strive to outdo them in civility, and that we would make good every part of his agreement; in token whereof, I caused a white flag likewise to be spread at the poop of our great ship, which was ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Christmas entertainments. When, in 1201, he kept Christmas at Guildford he taxed his purse and ingenuity in providing all his servitors with costly apparel, and he was greatly annoyed because the Archbishop of Canterbury, in a similar fit of sumptuary extravagance, sought to outdo his sovereign. John, however, cunningly concealed his displeasure at the time, but punished the prelate by a costly celebration of the next Easter festival at Canterbury at the Archbishop's expense. In consequence ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... of goats in a menagerie are the butters-in, or the new rich, who get in the way of the society leaders and try to outdo them in society stunts, but they smell so that the other animals are made sick and the goats are only tolerated because animal society is afraid to offend them, for fear the leaders may some time go into bankruptcy and the goats will take their places and ...
— Peck's Bad Boy at the Circus • George W. Peck
... Igladly conclude with the words of old Fairfax (Bulk and Selvedge, 1674): "Ibelieve no man wishes with more earnestness than I do, that all men of learning and knowledge were men of kindness and sweetness, and that such as can outdo others would outlove them too; especially while self bewhispers us, that it stands us all in need to be forgiven as well ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... of them should be devoted to some public purpose. We may be certain that there would be animated discussions, because a real solidarity of feeling would have arisen and a pride in the work of the community engendered, and they would like to be able to outdo the good work ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... the money to build it. Kieft gave a small amount, as did other colonists, but there was not enough. Fortunately, just at this time, a daughter of Bogardus, the minister, was married. At the wedding, when the guests were in good humor, a subscription-list was handed out. The guests tried to outdo one another in subscribing money for the new church. Next day some of the subscribers were sorry they had agreed to give so much, but the Governor accepted no excuses and insisted on the money. It was collected, and the church was built. Close upon this time Kieft decided that he needed money for ...
— The Story of Manhattan • Charles Hemstreet
... of M. de Poissy's pocket—a letter from his wife, full of tender words of endearment and pretty babblings of love. This was read aloud, with coarse ribald comments on every sentence, each trying to outdo the previous speaker. When they came to some pretty words about a sweet Maurice, their little child away with its mother on some visit, they laughed at M. de la Tourelle, and told him that he would be hearing such woman's drivelling some day. Up ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... own. Even therefore when the disseminator of the news, that is, the owner of the newspaper, has no special motive for lying, the message is conveyed in a vitiated and inhuman form. Where he has a motive for lying (as he usually has) his lie can outdo any ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... fellow-creatures, were with needless austerity excluded from what he called the Snakery and doomed to companionship with their own kind, though to soften the rigors of their lot he had permitted them out of his great wealth to outdo the reptiles in the gorgeousness of their surroundings and to shine with ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... with her full, young voice, and her song also roused the birds, for they, too, now carolled loudly, ready to outdo each other. Laughingly the child sang once more with all ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... before we fired a gun. It was then near ten o'clock. I observed to the admiral, that about that time our wives were going to church, but that I thought the peal we should ring about the Frenchman's ears would outdo their parish bells." ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... they took turns, week about, in keeping their room in order, each trying to outdo his mate in the thoroughness with which he attended to all the ...
— Elsie's Vacation and After Events • Martha Finley
... or, at any rate, does not know his audience. It is his business to play upon the collective mind of his audience as upon a keyboard—to arouse just the right order and measure of anticipation, and fulfil it, or outdo it, in just the right way at just the right time. The skill of the dramatist, as distinct from his genius or inspiration, lies in the correctness of his insight into the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... casting his eyes round the circle of more youthful beauties in his Court for a successor. "And what woman in the world," thought she, "could vie with Angelique des Meloises if she chose to enter the arena to supplant La Pompadour? Nay, more! If the prize of the King were her lot, she would outdo La Maintenon herself, and end by sitting on ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... And I will tell you what I think: The patriarchs themselves never used to scorn the dowries of their women. Jacob loved Rachel and courted her seven years, but he also liked the fat rams and sheep that he earned in her father's service. That, I think, was not to his discredit, and to outdo him in anything would be to put him to the blush. I should have liked very much to see your daughter bring a couple of hundred thalers with her; and that was quite natural, because she herself would thereby be so much the better off with me. If a ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... ambition, strife, struggle, suffering—why should the historians trouble to tell of them? You yourself, Alban, would be a worker if the opportunity came to you. I have foreseen that from the first moment I met you. If you were interested, you would outdo the Germans and beat them both with your head and your hands. But it will be very difficult to interest you. You would need some great stimulus, and in your case it would be ambition rather than ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton
... increase the circulation; Journalism will descend to mountebanks' tricks worthy of Bobeche; Journalism would serve up its father with the Attic salt of its own wit sooner than fail to interest or amuse the public; Journalism will outdo the actor who put his son's ashes into the urn to draw real tears from his eyes, or the mistress who sacrifices everything ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... She made them for herself on scraps of paper, and rolled them on her tongue when there seemed no occasion for such eloquence. She was upheld in these excursions by the certainty that no language could outdo the splendor of her father's memory, and although her efforts did not notably further the end of his biography, she was under the impression of living more in his shade at such times than at others. No one can escape the power ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... the dinner a specific antidote for a bruised character, for no sooner had my literary friends eaten it than they were ready to outdo one another in saying good things of me. One cunning fellow told his readers that the election of General Harrison was entirely owing to the wisdom I had distilled into the minds of the people of Cape Cod. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... a great while ago) and I found him a very pretty man. In the afternoon Commissioner Pett and I went on board the yacht, which indeed is one of the finest things that ever I saw for neatness and room in so small a vessel. Mr. Pett is to make one to outdo this for the honour of his country, which I fear he will scarce better. From thence with him as far as Ratcliffe, where I left him going by water to London, and I (unwilling to leave the rest of the officers) went back again to Deptford, and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... Fontenoy; his Toils at home, in defiance of Cold and Fatigue; his Pursuit to Carlisle; his Victory at Culloden; and many more which will then be as well known; repeat all if thou canst, and if thy Memory fails, go on nevertheless: for Invention cannot here outdo the Reality, and thy Fictions shall recommend thee equal ...
— The Lovers Assistant, or, New Art of Love • Henry Fielding
... heart," says Barrow, "will disdain to subsist, like a drone, upon others' labours; like a vermin to filch its food out of the public granary; or, like a shark, to prey upon the lesser fry; but it will rather outdo his private obligations to other men's care and toil, by considerable service and beneficence to the public; for there is no calling of any sort, from the sceptre to the spade, the management whereof, with ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... Douglas, Oscar was merely a quickening, inspiring, intellectual influence; but the boy's effect on Oscar was of character and induced imitation. Lord Alfred Douglas' boldness gave Oscar outrecuidance, an insolent arrogance: artist-like he tried to outdo his model in aristocratic disdain. Without knowing the cause the change in Oscar astonished me again and again, and in the course of this narrative I shall have to ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... the liberal arts, and to be taught the Latin language; and induced them to imitate the Roman modes of dress and living. 19. Thus, by degrees, this barbarous people began to assume the luxurious manners of their conquerors, and even to outdo them in all the refinements of sensual pleasure. 20. Upon account of the successes in Britain, Titus was saluted Impera'tor[28] for the fifteenth time; but he did not long survive this honour, being seized with a violent fever at a little distance from Rome. He ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... really dead, at last they openly praised the winner and abused the loser and proposed that everything in the world which they could devise be given to Caesar. In the course of it all there was a great rivalry among practically all of the foremost men who were eager to outdo one another in fawning upon him and voting pleasing measures. By their shouts and by their gestures all of them as if Caesar were present and looking on showed the very greatest zeal and deemed that in return for it ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... boldly "save the country." He had so little humor that he could take this stuff seriously. Among all the foolish letters which the executors of famous men have permitted to see the light of publicity, few outdo a letter of McClellan's in which he confided to his wife that he was willing to become dictator, should that be the only way out, and then, after saving his country, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... profound is surely known by one quality—its being wholly bottomless; insomuch, that when you think you have attained its utmost depth in the work of some of its great masters, another, or peradventure the same, astonishes you, immediately after, by a plunge so much more vigorous, as to outdo all his former outdoings. So it seems to be with the new school, or, as they may be termed, the wild or lawless poets. After we had been admiring their extravagance for many years, and marvelling at the ease and rapidity with ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... honour sundry days, heartening him in his great and noble purpose with all manner of wit and wisdom. Then, Mithridanes desiring to return to his own house with his company, he dismissed him, having throughly given him to know that he might never avail to outdo him ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... lead; maximum; record; trikumia [Gr.], climax; culmination &c (summit) 210; transcendence; ne plus ultra [Lat.]; lion's share, Benjamin's mess; excess, surplus &c (remainder) 40; (redundancy) 641. V. be superior &c adj.; exceed, excel, transcend; outdo, outbalance^, outweigh, outrank, outrival, out-Herod; pass, surpass, get ahead of; over-top, override, overpass, overbalance, overweigh, overmatch; top, o'ertop, cap, beat, cut out; beat hollow; outstrip &c 303; eclipse, throw into the shade, take the shine out of, outshine, put one's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... when the Court was in residence at Schoenbrunn. The palace there had been newly erected, and the workmen had not removed the scaffolding, a fact which was hailed with delight by the choir-boys as affording an unlooked-for means of relaxation. One after another climbed the poles, each striving to outdo the rest in attaining the highest point. In vain did the Empress Maria Theresa, who had perceived them from her windows, issue prohibitions and threaten dire punishment to the offenders—the sport went on unchecked. ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... the business of a translator to attempt to outdo all others in singing the praises of his raw material. This is a dangerous process and may well lead, as it led Mr. Calderon, to drawing the reader's attention to points of beauty not to be found in the original. A few bibliographical ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... thou nothing but Cuckoo? The robin and the wren can thee outdo. They to us play through their little throats, Taking not one, but sundry pretty taking notes. But thou hast fellows, some like thee can do Little but suck our eggs, and sing Cuckoo. Thy notes do not first welcome in our spring, Nor dost ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... long neck. In the ardor of the fight the rowers dropped their oars and hurried to the scene, to take part in the struggle. The slaughter was sickening, but not a man quailed. Never had I dreamed of such blind and desperate courage as was now displayed before my horror-stricken eyes. Each sought to outdo the other. They had managed to throw ropes around the monster's neck, by which he was held close to the galley. His fierce movements seemed likely to drag us all down under the water; and his long neck, free from restraint, writhed and twisted among the struggling crowd ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... indulge somewhat in the language of exaggeration, the testimony of so respectable a witness cannot be rejected as untrue. "We," says he, "proceed so far in the affectation of pomp and state, as to outdo even bad rulers among the pagans; and, like the emperors, surround ourselves with a guard that we may be feared and made difficult of access, particularly to the poor. And in many of our so-called Churches, especially in the large towns, may be found presiding officers ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... at the time public opinion was roused to a fever heat of patriotic enthusiasm, and the Irish Protestant Unionists were eager to outdo even the music-halls in Imperialist sentiment, the students of Trinity College being then, as ever, the 'death or glory' boys of Irish loyalty. It is easy to imagine how Hyacinth's name was whispered shudderingly in the reading-room of the library, how his sentiments were anathematized ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... took pains that he should enjoy a better bottle of wine than usual, and as to himself ate and drank very moderately indeed, but like anybody else. Laura could only imagine that it was not seemly to outdo your priest. ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the advantage that his opponents had placed themselves in the wrong, but as no one could outdo him in that respect, he instantly fell on the unfortunate monks of Canterbury, and declaring them guilty of high treason, sent two of his most lawless men-at-arms and their followers to drive them out of ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... third time, just as he was going to rush at her, she laid the cross upon him. He fell down and died. She looked into the coffin; there lay ever so much money. The father-in-law wanted to take it away with him, or, at all events, that only some one who could outdo him in cunning should ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... former owner had come and gone unobserved. The use of an open door is hardly trespass under the law of any land; and dawn is an excellent time for the impecunious who take thought of the lily how it grows in order to outdo Solomon. ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... (wonderfully large, that stick two or three inches from their hair), made of diamonds, pearls, red, green, and yellow stones, that it certainly requires as much art and experience to carry the load upright, as to dance upon May-day with the garland. Their whalebone petticoats outdo ours by several yards circumference, and cover ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... dialects of the north-country keelman, pilot and tradesman, he had at his command a source of supply unrivalled in vituperative richness, abundance and variety. With these at his tongue's end none could touch, much less outdo him in power and scope of abusive description. He became in consequence of these superior advantages so "insupportably impudent" that the only known cure for his complaint was to follow the prescription of Capt. Atkins of the Panther, and "take him as fast as you could ketch him"; [Footnote: ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... brethren of the South, will as one man resist such invasion of the soil of the South, at all hazards, and to the last extremity!" The Committee on Federal Relations, to which was referred the communications addressed to Governor Magoffin, exerted itself to outdo the resolutions given above, and reported resolutions of which the substance was, that as Kentucky had been invaded by the Confederate forces, and the commanders of said forces had "insolently prescribed the conditions upon which they will withdraw;" "that the invaders ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... had stretched one of them on the ground mortally wounded. While the other two were occupied in raising their companion, he, perceiving himself to be naked and the others armed, bethought him that he could not outdo them except it were by flight, as being the least encumbered with clothes. And so he had escaped, and for this he praised God and those who ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... which were still lit and uneasy—for the fleet of airships overhead had kept the cafes open and people abroad—over the great new bridge, and so by straggling outskirts to the country. And all through his capital the king who hoped to outdo Caesar, sat back and was very still, and no one spoke. And as they got out into the dark country they became aware of the searchlights wandering over the country-side like the uneasy ghosts of giants. The king sat forward and looked at these ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... man. He was dauntless and all-enduring, fruitful in resource, self-controlled and persevering, and, though not wiser than his age, purer and more true. He was as lithesome as an Indian, and could outdo him in some physical efforts and endurance. His almost yearly voyages between France and Quebec led him through strange contrasts of court and wilderness life; but he was the same man in both. His discovery of the lake which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... mistaken in expecting kinder treatment of Regan than he had experienced from her sister Goneril. As if willing to outdo her sister in unfilial behavior, she declared that she thought fifty knights too many to wait upon him; that five-and-twenty were enough. Then Lear, nigh heartbroken, turned to Goneril and said that he would go back with her, for her fifty doubled five-and-twenty, ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... place where everybody gets nervous prostration trying to outdo everybody else in originality and extravagance, it wouldn't be like Mrs. Ess Kay to let ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... did not occur till the third decade of the nineteenth century. But even from the time of the Battle of Waterloo until, say, about 1825 there were ten years in which the smugglers left no device untried which they could conceive to enable them to outdo the Revenue authorities. And we may now proceed to give actual instances of ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... one-sixth; William Moore one-sixth. Our box is fitted up with great taste with light blue hangings, gilded panels and cornice, armchairs, and a sofa. Some of the others have rich silk ornaments, some are painted in fresco, and each proprietor seems to have tried to outdo the rest in comfort and magnificence. The scenery is beautiful. The dome and the fronts of the boxes are painted in the most superb classical designs, and the sofa seats are exceedingly commodious. Will ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... frivolous emptiness,—but that our girls are going to merit the high praise given us by De Tocqueville, when he placed first among the causes of our prosperity the noble character of American women. Because foolish female persons in New York are striving to outdo the demi-monde of Paris in extravagance, it must not follow that every sensible and patriotic matron, and every nice, modest young girl, must forthwith and without inquiry rush as far after them as they possibly can. ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... any great vigour; he realized the futility of an appeal to a nature so shallow, so self-centred, and so lacking in sympathy. He took his revenge by teasing her about the wedding presents which were still flowing in. Her father's business friends were still striving to outdo one another in the costliness of the jewelry they were giving her. The great houses of the Faubourg Saint-Germain were still refraining firmly from anything that savoured of extravagance or ostentation. ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... reckless vehemence, flung himself, as it were, into its arms. His was an excitable nature; he had never thought of any one but himself, but labored with egotistical zeal to cultivate his own mind and outdo his fellows in the competition for learning. The sullen words in which he called himself the most wretched man on earth, and the victim of the blackest ill-fortune, fell from his lips like stones. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to be in all sections of the country, but it is the southerner who is heard from the most, possibly because he is more in contact with the real problem and then because it seems to be a policy of southern politicians to attempt to outdo each other in their speeches along the line of race prejudice. According to Weatherford prejudice has arisen out of the fear that education will lead to the dominance of the Negro in politics and to promiscuous mingling in social life. "The southern white man will never be enthusiastic ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... as if built upon islands; trees with their trunks submerged, their leafy tops alone visible; canoes and large periaguas, decked with flags and filled with people in their holiday suits, trying to outdo each other in speed or elegance of adornment; while groups of young girls, gaily dressed and crowned with flowers, may be seen seated in the boats, singing to the inspiriting accompaniment ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... or in word; for he has not the doing of a good deed of himself, nor of his own desiring. The fourth that snatches from a man his reward for a good deed (is) when he does it with the intent to be holden better than others, or to lessen the good deed of others, or to outdo it if he can. Of such, S. Gregory tells a tale in his dialogues: That once on a time the holy Bishop Fortunatus, chased the fiend out of a man in one evening; and the fiend, when he was chased out, put on the likeness of a pilgrim, and went through the city where the Bishop lived, weeping and ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... poetical rhapsodies; incidents of travel, humorous, pathetic, and graphic; swirling eddies of word-painting, of moral and ethical and historical reflection; withal, an immense, amiable, innocent, sprawling temperament. And as was her book, so was Grace herself; indeed, if any one could outdo the book in personal conversation, Grace was that happy individual. What she accomplished when she embarked, full-sailed, upon the topic of The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables may be pictured to themselves by persons endowed with the rudiments ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... liberty, and give me the command of the party? And what I refer to is negroes. We have divers of them in our service, mixed with white men. But I think it would be more proper to raise a body by themselves, than to have them intermixed with the white men; and their ambition would entirely be to outdo the white men in every measure that the fortune of war calls a soldier to endure. And I could rely with dependence upon them in the field of battle, or to any post that I was sent to defend with them; and they would think themselves happy could they gain their freedom by bearing a part ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... animated by artistic enthusiasm. Ostentatiousness had, I am afraid, more to do with it than love of art for art's sake. Music was simply one of the indispensable departments of their establishments, in the splendour and vastness of which they tried to outdo each other and vie with sovereign rulers. The promiscuous enumeration of musicians, cooks, footmen, &c., in the lady's description of a nobleman's court which I referred to in the proem, is in this respect very characteristic. Towards the middle of the last century Prince Sanguszko, who ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... acquire will be not sensuous merely, but poetical; Titians, Murillos, or Turners are colourists in representation, and their canvases would not be particularly warm or luminous if they represented nothing human or mystical or atmospheric. A stained-glass window or a wall of tiles can outdo them for pure colour and decorative magic. Leaving decoration, accordingly, to take care of itself and be applied as sense may from time to time require, painting goes on to elaborate the symbols with which it begins, to make them symbolise ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... snowing outdo's?" she asked, briskly, after the greetings were transacted. "Mah goodness!" she said, in answer to his apparent surprise at the question. "Ah mahght as well have stayed in the Soath, for all the winter Ah have seen in ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... after dinner, calls the regiment back to the parade-ground. The real work of the day is over; and now come recreation and amusement. The remarkable "evolutions" of the several companies are shown, each town striving to outdo the others. Of course the Walton Light Infantry will excel all the rest; but it may be no easy matter to make every one think as we do. The newest evolution—that of the snake on training-day—certainly "brings down the house," even if it fails to carry an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... your own, if I may make so free as to tell you so. Sir Hyacinth O'Brien," said he, "as capital an electioneerer as you are, I'll engage I'll find one that shall outdo you here. Send me and Stafford back again this minute to Rosanna, and we'll bring you the three votes as dead as crows in an hour's time, or my ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... begun in the cities, those who followed carried the revolutionary spirit further and further, and determined to outdo the report of all who had preceded them by the ingenuity of their enterprises and the atrocity of their revenges. The meaning of words had no longer the same relation to things, but was changed by them as they thought proper. Reckless daring was held to be loyal courage; prudent ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... outdo the other at every point; advertising, number of performers, length of the street parade, menagerie collection and everything which money could buy. They started in to see which could get the largest herd of elephants, each advertising the largest ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... previously referred to make it clear that it is possible to outdo Froude in his denunciations, even where it is on his statements that the accusers found their charges. In his 'History of England'—which is widely read, especially by the younger generation of Englishmen—the Rev. J. Franck Bright tells ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... feminine millinery in the city of the Pilgrims,—an idea which we rather think young Boston would laugh down as an exploded superstition, young Boston's leading idea at the present hour being apparently to outdo New York in New ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... and me, friend and neighbour; we will get a pair of scales, then you Robin Mutton shall be put into one of them, and Tup Robin into the other. Now I will hold you a peck of Busch oysters that in weight, value, and price he shall outdo you, and you shall be found light in the very numerical manner as when you ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... countries, and among strangers. On many occasions I have seen the Britisher and American argue and even quarrel over the merits of their countries but when serious trouble arose, all jealousies would be cast aside, and each one would endeavor to outdo the ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... his predecessors. Now, this vessel was American, Grinnell was American, and Kane was American. The Englishman's disdain for the Yankee will be easily understood; in the heart of Hatteras it changed to hatred; he was resolved to outdo his audacious competitor and reach the ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... area. Merritt was provoked. He pointed to the west and one could have made a chart of Custer's trail by the columns of black smoke which marked it. The general was manifestly fretting lest Custer should appear to outdo him in zeal in obeying orders, and blamed me as his responsible subordinate, for the delay. I told him, with an appearance of humility that I am sure was unfeigned, that those mills would never grind again, ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... remember the evenings when he read to us gravely out of his old Shakespeare, dwelling tenderly upon passages he loved. And he instructed me in other things,—in honor and manliness, in woodcraft, and many a pretty thing at arms, until no lad in the settlements around could outdo me in rough border sport. I loved to hear him, of a boisterous winter night,—he spoke of such matters but seldom,—tell about his army life, the men he had fought beside and loved, the daring deeds born of his younger blood. In that way he ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... it is beyond a doubt that their outcome has been fruitful and happy for German science. For it owes its splendid pre-eminence over that of other countries precisely to the many centres of culture which were offered by those numerous petty capitals of the minor German States which strove to outdo each other in eager emulation. It is to be hoped that this happy decentralisation of science in our politically united fatherland may continue ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... lay before him. He was pausing to say good-night, confused, troubled by what he had heard, feeling he must confess his own regard for the girl and not let this comparative stranger so buoyantly outdo ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... of the evening was about to begin. Men and women primed themselves for the effort. Each was eager to outdo his or her neighbor in variety of steps and power of endurance. All were prepared to do or die. The mad jig was a national contest, and the one who lasted the longest would be held the champion dancer of the district—a coveted distinction ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... devils, and see how they outdo ye. No, Pope; thou didst it when thy lips kissed the feet of my Leviathan. ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... operating through the types of mind among which her life had been cast, those who have followed our story thus far can have no doubt. The cusp of the upward-sweeping curve had been reached through the insane eagerness of Mrs. Hawley-Crowles to outdo her wealthy society rivals in an arrogant display of dress, living, and vain, luxurious entertaining, and the acquisition of the empty honor attaching to social leadership. The coveted prize was ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... looking to the gratification of higher wants. Such a common interest spurs all to bend their thoughts towards simplifying and quickening the process of labor. The ambition to invent and discover is stimulated to the highest pitch: each will seek to outdo the other in propositions ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... them. It is no uncommon occurrence for a fine mansion, its furniture, pictures, and even the jewels of its occupants, to be pledged to some usurer for the means with which to carry on this life of luxury. Each person strives to outdo his or her acquaintances. Those who have studied the matter find no slight cause for alarm in the rapid spread of extravagance among all classes of the city people, for the evil is not confined to the wealthy. They might afford it, but people of moderate means, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... would bring him she always told herself, and usually after two or three empty Sundays there would come a happy one, with the new car which was built like a projectile, purring in the road, George and Alice shouting greetings as they came in the gate, Louise excitedly attempting to outdo herself on the dinner, and the sunburned noisy babies shrieking themselves hoarse as they romped ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... word. When it comes to the question of her personal adornment, a woman employs no reason; she knows no logic. She knows that the adornment of her body is all that she has to match the other woman and outdo her, and to attract the male, and nothing that you can say will influence her a particle. I know this all seems incomprehensible to you as a man, but that is the feminine nature. You are trying to ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... "So often as we think of the good lady in question, with hardly a note of voice left, but overflowing with quaint humor, and willingly turning her years and ill looks to the utmost account, with a readiness to be absurd, if the part needed, which even a Lablache could not outdo,—so often as we recollect her Madame Barnek, in 'L'Ambassadrice,' and her La Bocchetta in 'Polichinelle, some of our most comic operatic impressions will be revived. Madame Boulanger was buried in the church of ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... yet do you take my sister,' and I should lay his hand in Lubotshka's. Then he would say to me, 'No, not for all the world!' and I should reply, 'Prince Nechludoff, it is in vain for you to attempt to outdo me in nobility. Not in the whole world does there exist a more magnanimous being than Nicolas Irtenieff.' Then I should salute him and depart. In tears Dimitri and Lubotshka would pursue me, and entreat me to accept their sacrifice, ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... are to remember and apply, that the poorest person is not excused from doing good to others, and even relieving the wants of his distressed neighbour, according to his abilities; and if you perform your duty in this point, you far outdo the greatest liberalities of the rich, and will accordingly be accepted of by God, and get your reward: For it is our Saviour's own doctrine, when the widow gave her two mites. The rich give out of their abundance; that is to say, what they ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... always long for more, and that stronger. A young man of talent, who would produce an effect and be acknowledged, and who is great enough to go his own way, must accommodate himself to the taste of the day—nay, must seek to outdo his predecessors in the horrible and frightful. But in this chase after outward means of effect, all profound study, and all gradual and thorough development of the talent and the man from within, is entirely neglected. And this is the greatest ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... engaged arrived in the morning, and I had had the loveliest flowers put in all the rooms. Pierre intended to outdo himself for the wedding dejeuner, I knew, and Burton had been able to find somewhere a really respectable looking ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... you were bringing into the prairies for a decoy! I know you to be a man who seldom troubles truth, when any thing worse may answer, but I never knew you to outdo yourself so thoroughly before. The newspapers of Kentuck have called you a dealer in black flesh a hundred times, but little did they reckon that you drove the trade ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... knavish, who would outdo thee in all manner of guile, even if it were a god encountered thee. Hardy man, subtle of wit, of guile insatiate, so thou wast not even in thine own country to cease from thy sleights and knavish words, which thou lovest from the bottom of thine heart! But come, no more ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... editors to outdo each other have been titanic. When Simpson put in a steam engine, Ayers mortgaged his plant and got one of the new gasoline engines just then being introduced into an unhappy world. He never used it much unless he had lots of time in which ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... competition is a wholesome and vital law; it is only the direction of it that requires alteration. When the cessation of working for one's livelihood takes place, human energy and love of production will not cease with it, but will persist, and must find their channels. But competition to outdo each in the service of all is free from collisions, and its range is limitless. Not to support life, but to make life more lovely, will be the effort; and not to make it more lovely for one's self, but for one's neighbor. Nor is this ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various
... instinct is in fact the cause of a very large amount of the world's intellectual endeavor. The financier does not think merely for money, nor the scientist for truth, nor the theologian to save souls. Their intellectual efforts are aimed in great measure to outdo the other man, to subdue nature, to conquer assent. The maternal instinct in its turn is the chief source of woman's superiorities in the moral life. The virtues in which she excels are not so much due to ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... whose attitude towards ancient but disorganised civilisations has been illustrated by the history of Kiao-chau and by the celebrated allocution of the Kaiser to his soldiers on the eve of the Boxer expedition, when he bade them outdo the ferocity of Attila and his Huns; whose attitude towards kindred civilisations on the same level as their own has been illustrated before the war in the treatment of Danes, Poles, and Alsatians, and during the ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... child's heart had grown case-hardened and steely; asking nothing, doing his tasks for his own satisfaction, and finally taking a sad pleasure in that silence which was so frequently imposed upon him. Then he had grown up, and the sullen determination to outdo his brother in everything had got possession of his strong nature. He remembered how, coming home from school, he had presented his mother with the report which spoke of his final examinations as ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... property,"[440] and thinks it ought to apply to nothing more than to friends; but the false and spurious and counterfeit friend, knowing how much he debases friendship, like debased and spurious coin, is not only by nature envious, but shows his envy even of those who are like himself, striving to outdo them in scurrility and gossip, while he quakes and trembles at any of his betters, not by Zeus "merely walking on foot by their Lydian chariot," but, to use the language of Simonides, "not even, having pure lead by comparison ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... is the value of an oath understood by any but the Bull family, that none but the postboys and the vulgar use oaths in foreign nations, America excepted; but that country being a chip of the old block, already rivals honest John; outdo ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 360 - Vol. XIII. No. 360, Saturday, March 14, 1829 • Various
... and from thee Receive new life. So Man, as is most just, Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die, And dying rise, and rising with him raise His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life. So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate, Giving to death, and dying to redeem, So dearly to redeem what hellish hate So easily destroyed, and still destroys In those who, when they may, accept not grace. Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume Man's nature, lessen or degrade thine own. Because thou ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... more interesting still, but now our attention was turned to the delightful scene through which we were passing. It will be utterly impossible to describe the beauty of the landscape, where nature and art seemed to be striving to outdo each other. Before reaching land I had imagined that the houses, if they were to be proportioned to the inhabitants, must pierce the sky. But we were surprised to find that they were all comparatively low, of ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... take—'and thereby hangs a tale.' The observation is in point, verbum sat, as the latinist would say. Well, Sir, as I was saying, a citizen, with a design to outdo his neighbours, called at one of the first shops in London a very short time since, and gave particular orders to have his pericranium fitted with a wig of the true royal cut. The dimensions of ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... willingness, but not the resolution. She threw her scruples into the waste-basket, accepted Pet's invitation, went with her and her crowd to one of the most reckless dances in Greenwich Village, where men and women strove to outdo the saturnalia of Montmartre, vied with one another in exposure, and costumed themselves as closely according to the fig-leaf era as the grinning policemen ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... treat to see Burton and Burke in the same play: they acted into each other's hands with the most perfect skill; there was no striving to outdo each other. If the scene required that for a time one should be prominent, the other would become the background of the picture, and so strengthen the general effect; by this method they produced a perfectly harmonious work. For instance, ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... sleep, my Soul is so unfurnish'd Of all that Sweetness which allow'd it rest. —'Tis flown, 'tis flown, for ever from my breast, And in its room eternal discords dwell, Such as outdo the black intrigues ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... Hen found a place too, and tried to outdo his comrades; seeing which Giraffe apparently thought he might as well make it unanimous then there were four, leaving only the skipper and his first assistant on deck to manage ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... affairs, superior to any man. She has now excelled the others and developed the very features of a beautiful young woman. To say the least, she has ten thousand eyes in her heart, and were they willing to wager their mouths, why ten men gifted with eloquence couldn't even outdo her! But by and bye, when you've seen her, you'll know all about her! There's only this thing, she can't help being rather too severe in her ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the poor, but from 'a sense of duty.' Almsgiving and visiting the sick were one of the methods of earning heaven prescribed by her new creed. She was ashamed of her own laziness by the side of Honoria's simple benevolence; and, sad though it may be to have to say it, she longed to outdo her by some signal act of self-sacrifice. She had looked to this nunnery, too, as an escape, once and for all, from her own luxury, just as people who have not strength to be temperate take refuge in teetotalism; and the thought ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... doom: No Sex nor Age was spar'd: Not kneeling Beauties Tears, not Virgins Cries, Nor Infants Smiles: No prey so small but dies. Alas, the hard-mouth'd Blood-hound, Zeal, bites through; Religion hunts, and hungry Jaws pursue. To what strange Rage is Superstition driven, That Man can outdo Hell to fight for Heav'n! So Rebel Geshur fought: so drown'd in gore, Even Mother Earth blusht at the Sons she bore; And still asham'd of her old staining Brand, Her Head shrinks down and Quagmires half their ...
— Anti-Achitophel (1682) - Three Verse Replies to Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden • Elkanah Settle et al. |
