Home > Topic > superlative
1 " There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to outcarol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain… Or so says the legend. "
― Colleen McCullough , The Thorn Birds
2 " It is a foible of our human nature that when we have an extremely unpleasant experience, it gives us a peculiar satisfaction if it is “the biggest” of its disagreeable kind that has happened since the world began. During a heat wave, for instance, we are very pleased if the papers announce that it is “the highest temperature reached since the year 1881,” and we feel a little resentment towards the year 1881 for having gone us one better. Or if our ears are frozen till all the skin peels off, it fills us with a certain happiness to learn that “it was the hardest frost recorded since 1786.” It is just the same with wars. The war in progress is either the most righteous or the bloodiest, or the most successful, or the longest, since such and such a time; any superlative whatever always affords us the proud satisfaction of having been through something extraordinary and record-breaking. "
― Karel Čapek , The Absolute at Large
3 " When the Great War broke out, it came to me not as a superlative tragedy, but as an interruption of the most exasperating kind to my personal plans. "
― Vera Brittain , Testament of Youth
4 " Men can have an obvious display of heroics or strength or accomplishment, but it is the unsung women throughout all ages of humankind who have endured with superlative strength, beauty and love, often with secret suffering, that deserve absolute respect and acknowlegement. They are the true heroes of humanity. They are the champions who have birthed and nurtured us, who have held us together at the most integral level, when men seemed intent only on tearing apart the fabric of life for irrelevant ideals. "
― Red Haircrow
5 " Anyaele Sam Chiyson Leadership Law of Leading: Superlative leaders are fully equipped to deliver in destiny "
6 " The difference between superlative pie and a wish for cake is crust. Understand that pie is a generous but self-centered substance. It likes attention, not affection. Do not hug your crust. Do not rub its back or five its high. Don't fuss with refrigerators every step oft he way. Keep the water and butter cold, and remember what a wise baker once said: The goal is pie. "
― Kate Lebo , A Commonplace Book of Pie
7 " It is possible to conceive, Anselm said, of a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. Even an atheist can conceive of such a superlative being, though he would deny its existence in the real world. But, goes the argument, a being that doesn't exist in the real world is, by that very fact, less than perfect. Therefore we have a contradiction and, hey presto, God exists! "
― Richard Dawkins , The God Delusion
8 " Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied, unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. For it is man who is, in contrast to fairies, supernatural; whereas they are natural, far more natural than he. Such is their doom. "
― J.R.R. Tolkien , Tolkien On Fairy-stories
9 " Best timepass for idle person is to find another and gossip, without realising that there are superlative degrees of idle, idler, and idlest. "
10 " I needed people to deliver my feelings back to me in a form that was legible. Which is a superlative kind of empathy to seek, or to supply: an empathy that rearticulates more clearly what it's shown. "
― Leslie Jamison , The Empathy Exams
