28 Metaphors for excellences

Excellence is an inspiration, an intoxication.

At that time the absolute excellence of a democratic constitution was a dogma which few cared to dispute; it appeared to his hearers as a mere paradox when Bismarck pointed out how little evidence there was that a great country could prosper under the government of a Parliament elected by an extended franchise.

But the excellences and limitations of Poe in any one part of his work were his limitations and excellences in all.

Such, too, is the odour that is usually perceived in land newly cleared when an ancient forest has been just cut down; its excellence is a thing that is universally admitted.

But, as has been already said, his distinguishing excellence is vivid and natural description of the life and habits, not the opinions, of the people of the fourteenth century, described without exaggeration or effort for effect.

The great excellence of Plautus was the masterly handling of language, and the adjusting the parts for dramatic effect.

So natural is the love of power, that it sometimes becomes the influencing motive with the sincere advocates of that blessed religion, whose very characteristic excellence is the humility which it inculcates.

It is so mean a Thing to gratify a loose Age with a scandalous Representation of what is reputable among Men, not to say what is sacred, that no Beauty, no Excellence in an Author ought to attone for it; nay, such Excellence is an Aggravation of his Guilt, and an Argument that he errs against the Conviction of his own Understanding and Conscience.

'Sir, their chief excellence is being like.' BOSWELL.

And as for his tendernessthe quality without which all other poetic excellence is barrenit gushes forth toward every creature, animate and inanimate, with one exception, namely, the hypocrite, ever alike "spiacente a Dio e ai nemici sui;" and therefore intolerable to Robert Burns's honesty, whether he be fighting for or against the cause of right.

But let the honourable gentleman recollect, that the chief excellence of raillery is politeness, to which he has surely paid little regard, in supposing that what has been unanimously condemned as a libel, has one of those who censured it for its author.

Usually excellence is the result of long and careful labor.

Its great excellence, however, is its triumphant defence of Christianity over all other religions,the last of the great apologies which, while settling the faith of the Christian world, demolished forever the last stronghold of a defeated Paganism.

His distinguishing excellence was ideal beauty, and that of the sublimest order.

All excellence of every kind is but variety of truth.

The utmost excellence at which humanity can arrive, is a constant and determinate pursuit of virtue, without regard to present dangers or advantage; a continual reference of every action to the divine will; an habitual appeal to everlasting justice; and an unvaried elevation of the intellectual eye to the reward which perseverance only can obtain.

Frederic of Prussia was born in 1712, and had an unhappy childhood and youth from the caprices of a royal but disagreeable father, best known for his tall regiment of guards; a severe, austere, prejudiced, formal, narrow, and hypochondriacal old Pharisee, whose sole redeeming excellence was an avowed belief in God Almighty and in the orthodox doctrines of the Protestant Church.

How vividly have I felt, at this time, that excellence is a power, that it can influence selfish natures only as a power, and that, as contrasted with excellence, there is no freedom but love!

Shakespeare's excellence is not the fiction of a tale, but the representation of life; and his reputation is, therefore, safe, till human nature shall be changed.

His excellence is facility of adaptation, and of transition through many related points to wide contrasts and extremes.

The characteristic excellence of Elizabeth's reign, as it seems to me, was good government.

The garnish par excellence for dessert is the ice-plant; its crystallized dewdrops producing a marvellous effect in the height of summer, giving a most inviting sense of coolness to the fruit it encircles.

His distinguished excellence was simplicity and grandeur; and he was to sculpture what Aeschylus was to tragic poetry,sublime and grand, representing ideal excellence, Though his works have perished, the ideas he represented still live.

Man is infinite; men are finite: the purest aspect of great laws never appears in collections and aggregations, yet the same laws rule here as in the soul, and such excellence as is possible issues from the same sources.

This rare excellence was her complexion, which showed a perfect pink and white, without roughness, spot, or blemish, under the strong light of a noonday sun, made more dazzling by its reflection from the snow.

28 Metaphors for  excellences