One writer, for instance, excels at a plan or a title-page, another works away the body of the book, and a third is a dab at an index.
What is genuine but that which is truly excellent, which stands in harmony with the purest nature or reason, and which even now ministers to our highest development! What is spurious but the absurd and the hollow, which brings no fruit--at least, no good fruit.
That this new name should be more excellent than that of the Jews, and eternal. Isa. lvii. 5.
Let such teach others who themselves excel, / And censure freely who have written well.
Examples would indeed be excellent things, were not people so modest that none will set them, and so vain that none will follow them.
It is a very good world to live in, To lend, or to spend, or to give in; But to beg or to borrow, or to get a man's own, It is the very worst world that ever was known. Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well.
Chacun vaut son prix=--Every man has his value. _Fr. Pr._ [Greek: Chalepa ta kala]--What is excellent is difficult.
Some faults are so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
The eye, which reflects the beauty of the universe to those who see, is so excellent a thing that he who consents to its loss deprives himself of the spectacle of the works of nature; and it is owing to this spectacle, effected by means of the eye, which enables the soul to behold the various objects of nature, that the soul is content to remain in the prison of the body; but he who loses his eyesight leaves the soul in a dark prison, where {53} all hope of once more beholding the sun, the light of the whole world, is lost.... And how many are they who feel great hatred for the darkness of night, although it is brief. Oh! what would they do were they constrained to abide in this darkness during the whole of their life? Certainly there is no one who would not rather lose his hearing or his sense of smell than his eyesight, and the loss of hearing includes the loss of all sciences which find expression in words; and this loss a man would incur solely so as not to be deprived of the sight of the beauty of the world which consists in the surfaces of bodies artificial as well as natural, which are reflected in the human eye.
The contrary occurs in the case of the painter,--we are speaking of excellent painters and sculptors,--since the painter with great leisure sits before his work well clothed, and handles the light brush dipped in lovely colours. He wears {97} what garments he pleases; his dwelling is full of beautiful pictures, and it is clean; sometimes he has music or readers of diverse and pleasant works, which, without any noise of hammers or other confused sounds, are heard with great pleasure.
There is nothing better to display the truth in an excellent light, than a clear and simple statement of facts.--ST. BENEDICT.
"Be *excellent* to each other."
Great patriots must be men of great excellence; this alone can secure to them lasting admiration.
There are some faults so nearly allied to excellence that we can scarce weed out the vice without eradicating the virtue.
Cornelius Celsus: Knowledge is the supreme good, the supreme evil is physical pain. We are composed of two separate parts, the soul and the the body; the soul is the greater of these two, the body the lesser. Knowledge appertains to the {8} greater part, the supreme evil belongs to the lesser and baser part. Knowledge is an excellent thing for the mind, and pain is the most grievous thing for the body. Just as the supreme evil is physical pain, so is wisdom the supreme good of the soul, that is to say of the wise man, and no other thing can be compared with it.
Elucet maxime animi excellentia magnitudoque in despiciendis opibus=--Excellence and greatness of soul are most conspicuously displayed in contempt of riches.
"...a most excellent barbarian ... Genghis Kahn!"
Two things, Christian reader, particularly excite the will of man to good. A principle of justice is one, the other the profit we may derive therefrom. All wise men, therefore, agree that justice and profit are the two most powerful inducements to move our wills to any undertaking. Now, though men seek profit more frequently than justice, yet justice is in itself more powerful; for, as Aristotle teaches, no worldly advantage can equal the excellence of virtue, nor is any loss so great that a wise man should not suffer it rather than yield to vice. [ The Sinner’s Guide (1556).]
When once the mind has raised itself to grasp and to delight in excellence, those who love most will be found to love most wisely.
~Mediocrity.~--Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.--_Joubert._
Knowledge is to one a goddess, to another only an excellent cow.
Immortal gods! how much does one man excel another! What a difference there is between a wise person and a fool!
Every one excels in something in which another fails.
The most worthy thing is that which satisfies the most worthy sense; therefore painting, which satisfies the sense of sight, is more worthy than {86} music, which merely satisfies the hearing. The most worthy thing is that which endures longest; therefore music, which is continually dying as soon as it is born, is less worthy than painting, which lasts eternally with the colours of enamel. The most excellent thing is that which is the most universal and contains the greatest variety of things; therefore painting must be set above all other arts, because it contains all the forms which exist and also those which are not in nature, and it should be glorified and exalted more than music, which deals with the voice only.
History would be an excellent thing if only it were true.
Put out the light, and then put out the light: If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat That can thy light relume.
We all know a hundred whose coats are well made, and a score who have excellent manners; but of gentlemen how many? Let us take a little scrap of paper and each make out his list.
Without this divine knowledge what could men do but either uplift themselves by that inward conviction of their past greatness still remaining to them, or be cast down in view of their present infirmity? For, not seeing the whole truth, they could not attain to perfect virtue. Some considering nature as incorrupt, others as incurable, they could not escape either pride or idleness, the two sources of all vice; since they cannot but either abandon themselves to it by cowardice, or escape it by pride. For if they were aware of the excellency of man, they were ignorant of his corruption, so that they very easily avoided idleness, but only to fall into pride. And if they recognized the infirmity of nature, they knew not its dignity, so that though they might easily avoid presumption, it was only to plunge into despair.
Tel excelle a rimer qui juge sottement=--Some excel in rhyme who reason foolishly.
Handsomeness is the more animal excellence, beauty the more imaginative.
Radically wrong is the procedure of some masters who are in the habit of repeating the same themes in the same episodes, and whose types of beauty are likewise the same, for in nature they are never repeated, so that if all the beauties of equal excellence were to come to life again they would compose a larger population than that now existing in our century, and since in the present century no one person is precisely similar to another, so would it be among the beauties mentioned above.
Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.
"Sleep is an excellent way of listening to an opera."
Economy is an excellent lure to betray people into expense.
It is a horrible thing that they submit to us the discipline of the Church in our days as so excellent that it is made a crime to wish to change it Formerly it was infallibly good, and it was found it might be changed without sin, and now, such as it is, we ought not to wish it changed!
Base envy withers at another's joy, / And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Charms which, like flowers, lie on the surface and always glitter, easily produce vanity; whereas other excellences, which lie deep like gold and are discovered with difficulty, leave their possessors modest and proud.
The good painter has two principal things to depict: man and the purpose of his mind. The first is easy, the second is difficult, since he must do it by the gestures and movements of the limbs, and this is to be learnt from the dumb, who more than all other men excel in it.
There is always some levity in excellent minds; they have wings to rise and also to stray.
I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for.
We recognize a noble image, a marvellous conception, a supreme figure, an exalted shadow, an infinite representation of the represented infinity, a spectacle worthy of the excellence and supremacy of Him who transcendeth understanding, comprehension or grasp. Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest; He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds.
So vile a thing is a lie that even if it spoke fairly of God it would take away somewhat from His divinity; and so excellent a thing is truth that if it praises the humblest things they are exalted. There is no doubt that truth is to falsehood as light is to darkness; and so excellent a thing is truth that even when it touches humble and lowly matters, it still incomparably exceeds the uncertainty and falsehood in which great and elevated discourses are clothed; because even if falsehood be the fifth element of our minds, notwithstanding this, truth is the supreme nourishment of the higher intellects, though not of disorderly minds. But thou who feedest on dreams dost prefer the sophistry and subterfuges in matters of importance and uncertainty to what is certain and natural, though of lesser magnitude.
For there is no virtue, the honour and credit for which procures a man more odium [from the elite] than that of justice; and this, because more than any other, it acquires a man power and authority among the common people. For they only honour the valiant and admire the wise, while in addition they also love just men, and put entire trust and confidence in them. They fear the bold man, and mistrust the clever man, and moreover think them rather beholding to their natural complexion, than to any goodness of their will, for these excellences; they look upon valour as a certain natural strength of the mind, and wisdom as a constitutional acuteness; whereas a man has it in his power to be just, if he have but the will to be so, and there injustice is thought the most dishonourable, because it is least excusable. [“Cato the Younger,” The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , Translated by John Dryden and revised by Arthur Hugh Clough. (New York: Random House, Modern Library edition, p. 943).]
The imagination does not perceive such excellent things as the eye, because the eye receives the images or semblances from objects, and transmits them to the perception, and from thence to the brain; and there they are comprehended. But the imagination does not issue forth from the brain, with the exception of that part of it which is transmitted to the memory, and in the brain it remains and dies, if the thing imagined is not of high quality. And in this case poetry is formed in the mind or in the imagination of the poet, who depicts the same objects as the painter, and by reason of the work of his fancy he wishes to rival the painter, but in reality he is greatly inferior to him, as we have shown above. Therefore with regard to the work of fancy we will say that there is the same proportion between the art of painting and that of poetry as exists between the body and the shadow proceeding from it, and the proportion is still greater, inasmuch as the shadow of such a body at least penetrates to {122} the brain through the eye, but the imaginative embodiment of such a body does not enter into the eye, but is born in the dark brain. Ah! What difference there is between imagining such a light in the darkness of the brain and seeing it in concrete shape set free from all darkness.
Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8, NLT
No other has recognised that man is of all creatures the most excellent. Some, having apprehended the reality of his excellence, have blamed as mean and ungrateful the low opinion which men naturally have of themselves, and others, well aware how real is this vileness, have treated with haughty ridicule those sentiments of greatness which are no less natural to man.
I, who have so much and so universally adored this ariston metron, "excellent mediocrity," of ancient times, and who have concluded the most moderate measure the most perfect, shall I pretend to an unreasonable and prodigious old age?
Ceremony keeps up all things; 'tis like a penny glass to a rich spirit or some excellent water; without it the water were spilt, the spirit lost.
The painter should portray his figure according to the measurements of a natural body, which shall be of universal proper proportions; in addition to this he should measure himself and see in which part his own figure varies greatly or less from the aforesaid pattern of excellence, and when he has ascertained this he should try his utmost to avoid the defects which exist in his own person in the figures he portrays.
In some unlucky dispositions there is such an envious kind of pride that they cannot endure that any but themselves should be set forth for excellent; so that when they hear one justly praised they will either seek to dismount his virtues, or, if they be like a clear light, they will stab him with a _but_ of detraction; as if there were something yet so foul as did obnubilate even his brightest glory. When their tongue cannot justly condemn him, they will leave him suspected by their silence.--_Feltham._
Communism is the exploitation of the strong by the weak. In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.
Is it not a noble farce, wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the whole vast universe serves for a theatre?
Prayer is a turning of one's soul, in heroic reverence, in infinite desire and endeavour, towards the Highest, the All-excellent, Supreme.
Hence to fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting. [ The Art of War, translated by Lionel Giles, Luzac & Co., London, 1910, p. 17.]
Knowledge is the excellency of man, whereby he is usually differenced from the brute.
The Quakers have an excellent approach to thinking through difficult problems, where a number of intelligent and responsible people must work together. They meet as equals, and anyone who has an idea speaks up. There are no parliamentary procedures and no coercion from the Chair. They continue the discussion until unanimity is reached. I want you guys to do that. Get in a room with no phones and leave orders that you are not to be disturbed. And sit there until you can deal with each other as individuals
Christ's teaching is plainly that as He is the Son of God so we are His brothers. His conception of man is a new one, and as that is new, so must His conception of God be new. He lifts up humanity, and brings deity near to humanity, and He expresses their inseparable nature and their separate existences by the best simile which the world supplies, that of Father and Son. He claims no more for Himself than He claims for us. His only excellence is that which is due to Himself--His having been the first to find the Father, and become again His Son, and His having remained in life and death more one with the Father than any one of those who professed to believe in Him, and to follow His example.
Barbarism is the non-appreciation of what is excellent.
Whatever the skill of any country may be in the sciences, it is from its excellence in polite learning alone that it must expect a character from posterity.
Spirits are not finely touch'd / But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends / The smallest scruple of her excellence / But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines / Herself the glory of a creditor, / Both thanks and use.
Poetry is music in words, and music is poetry in sound; both excellent sauce, but they have lived and died poor that made them their meal.
Man is, beyond dispute, the most excellent of created beings, and the vilest animal is a dog; but the sages agree that a grateful dog is better than an ungrateful man.
Every fancy that we would substitute for a reality is, if we saw it aright and saw the whole, not only false, but every way less beautiful and excellent than that which we sacrifice to it.
Top Ten Things Overheard At The ANSI C Draft Committee Meetings:
The Blessed Virgin is of all the works of the Creator the most excellent, and to find anything in nature more grand one must go to the Author of nature Himself.--ST. PETER DAMIAN.
In marriage, as in other things, contentment excels wealth.
The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest.
We ought not to judge men by their absolute excellence, but by the distance which they have travelled from the point at which they started.
La condition par excellence de la vie, de la sante et de la force chez l'etre organise, est l'action. C'est par l'action qu'il developpe ses facultes, qu'il en augmente l'energie, et qu'il atteint la plenitude de sa destinee=--The chief condition on which depends the life, health, and vigour of an organised being is action. It is by action that it develops its faculties, that it increases its energy, and that it attains to the fulfilment of its destiny.
We cannot approach beauty. Its nature is like opaline dove's-neck lustres, hovering and evanescent. Herein it resembles the most excellent things, which have all this rainbow character, defying all attempts at appropriation and use.
What the ancients called a clever fighter is one who not only wins, but excels in winning with ease.
El enemigo es aquel que, desde el interior, destruye lo que merece la pena. Es el que te muestra la decrepitud contenida en cada realidad. Es aquel que saca a la luz tu bajeza y la de tus amigos. Es aquel que, en un día perfecto, encontrará una excelente razón para que te tortures. Es aquel que te hará sentir asco de ti mismo. Es aquel que, cuando entreveas el rostro celestial de una desconocida, te revelará la muerte contenida en tanta belleza.
I know that it is likely that as worship of the gods declines, faith between men and all human society will disappear, as well as that most excellent of all virtues, which is justice. ( Haud scio an pietate adversus deos sublata fides etiam et societas generi humani et una excellentissima virtus iustitia tollatur.) [ De Natura Deorum, I, 4.]
There is nothing of which Nature has been more bountiful than poets. They swarm like the spawn of cod-fish, with a vicious fecundity, that invites and requires destruction. To publish verses is become a sort of evidence that a man wants sense; which is repelled not by writing good verses, but by writing excellent verses.--_Sydney Smith._
When thou wishest to give thyself delight, think of the excellencies of those who live with thee; the energy of one, the modesty of another, the liberal kindness of a third.
Augusto felicior, Trajano melior=--A more fortunate man than Augustus, and a more excellent than Trajan.
Our minds should be habituated to the contemplation of excellence.
Mere sensibility is not true taste, but sensibility to real excellence is.
Children are excellent physiognomists and soon discover their real friends. Luttrell calls them all lunatics, and so in fact they are. What is childhood but a series of happy delusions?--_Sydney Smith._
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither.
In communism, inequality springs from placing mediocrity on a level with excellence.
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.
Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work.
Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.
We will say, therefore, that poetry is an art which is supremely potent for the blind, and the painting has the same result on the deaf. Painting, therefore, excels poetry in proportion as the sense to which it ministers is the nobler. The only true function of the poet is to represent the words of people who talk among each other, and these alone he represents to the hearing as if they were natural, because they are natural in themselves and created by the human voice; and in all other respects he is surpassed by the painter. Still more, incomparably greater is the width of range of painting than that of speech, because the painter can accomplish an infinity of things which speech will not be able to name for want of the appropriate terms. And seest thou not that if the painter wishes to depict animals and devils in Hell with what richness of invention he proceeds?
~Excelsior.~--Man's life is in the impulse of elevation to something higher.--_Jacobi._
The horror of "Materialism" which weighs upon the minds of so many excellent people appears to depend, in part, upon the purely accidental connexion of some forms of materialistic philosophy with ethical and religious tenets by which they are repelled; and, partly, on the survival of a very ancient superstition concerning the nature of matter.
Nature has made provision for all her children; the meanest is not hindered in its existence even by that of the most excellent.
A kind Of excellent dumb discourse.
Gedult gaat boven geleerdheid=--Patience excels learning.
Omnia pr?clara rara=--All excellent things are rare.
No good book or good thing of any sort shows its best face at first; nay, the commonest quality in a true work of art, if its excellence have any depth and compass, is that at first sight it occasions a certain disappointment.
Love is a familiar; love is a devil: there is no evil angel but love. Yet was Samson so tempted, and he had an excellent strength; yet was Solomon so seduced, and he had a very good wit.
Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.
Hence the word enemy being interpreted according to the end proposed, the just understood by it their passions, and the carnal understood the Babylonians, so that the term is obscure only for the unrighteous. And this is what Isaiah says: _Signa legem in electis meis_, and that Jesus Christ shall be a stone of stumbling. But, "Blessed are they who shall not be offended in him!" Hosea, xiv. 9, says excellently: "Where is the wise, and he shall understand these things. The just shall know them, for the ways of God are right, but the transgressors shall fall therein."