Literary notes about Superabundance (AI summary)
The term “superabundance” is used in literature to express not just excess, but an almost overwhelming overflow of qualities or phenomena that can be both potent and perilous. In some texts it emphasizes a surplus of physical or intangible elements—Yogananda notes a superabundance of strange faces in urban life as well as an excess of spiritual and material wealth [1, 2, 3], while Chekhov speaks of a superabundance of energy that might redeem personal fortunes [4]. Philosophers like Nietzsche use the term to highlight an overabundance that transforms power and strength into something ambivalent, sometimes even harmful [5, 6, 7, 8, 9], a sentiment echoed in Sunzi’s strategic discourse on strength [10, 11]. Other authors, including Hans Gross and even translators dealing with Latin nuances, employ “superabundance” to depict both the richness and potential overreach in emotional life and daily routines [12, 13, 14]. Finally, the term finds a reflective note in the letters of Juliette Drouet, where it captures the overflow of creative or emotional impulse [15, 16, 17, 18], and in William James’ observation of truth’s exponential growth [19].
- The city dweller finds the keen edge of hospitality blunted by superabundance of strange faces.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - The disciple felt almost ashamed to ask that physical wealth be added to his spiritual superabundance.
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - "Quotations there have been, in superabundance."
— from Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda - I am conscious of a superabundance of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work I could redeem my estate in five years.
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - “Whatever makes for illness is good ; whatever issues from abundance, from superabundance, from power, is evil ”: so argues the believer.
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Do not let us mention the poets in the same breath; nothing perhaps has ever been produced out of such a superabundance of strength.
— from Ecce Homo by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - Christianity is in need of illness, just as Ancient Greece was in need of a superabundance of health.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche - The strength, the freedom which proceed from intellectual power, from a superabundance of intellectual power, manifest themselves as scep ticism.
— from The Antichrist by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - "That which makes ill is good: that which proceeds from abundance, from superabundance and from power, is evil": that is the view of the faithful.
— from The Twilight of the Idols; or, How to Philosophize with the Hammer. The Antichrist by Nietzsche - 6. Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - Standing on the defensive indicates insufficient strength; attacking, a superabundance of strength.
— from The Art of War by active 6th century B.C. Sunzi - 12-13 quo redundaret = its own superabundance .
— from Helps to Latin Translation at Sight by Edmund Luce - The deficiency is to be explained only in the superabundance of emotional life.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - This superabundance clarifies a number of facts of their daily routine.
— from Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students by Hans Gross - Come then, and receive the superabundance of my ecstasy.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - I am too much in need of an outlet for the superabundance of my heart, to venture to close the issue.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - Honestly, I imagine you must soon tire, to put it as mildly as possible, of this superabundance of letters.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - It is a superabundance that will surely kill the body which bears it.
— from Juliette Drouet's Love-Letters to Victor Hugo by Juliette Drouet and Louis Guimbaud - You doubtless wish examples of this process of truth's growth, and the only trouble is their superabundance.
— from Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking by William James