Sentence examples for Not first rate from inspiring English sources

When I asked him about Francis Bacon, he said he was a stylist—"not first rate, though a nice man".

When I asked him about Francis Bacon, he said he was a stylist — "not first rate, though a nice man".

"They're not first rate, "he said, referring to the decline in qualified operatives, which he attributed to low salaries, dreary postings and the pressure of nonstop counterintelligence investigations of C.I.A. agents, 300 of which were under way in 1997.

I remember fewer instances of his favorite sorting out of social scientists into "first rate," "second rate" or "not first rate," seasoned by his taste for twigs over trunks—a taste that once had him tell me he had chosen Hopkins over Harvard because he preferred to be denied tenure by Jim Coleman than Talcott Parsons.

They are not second rate medical providers, either.

"Beasley's Christmas Party," C. W. Munger's charming adaptation of an early-20th-century Tarkington story, is not third rate.

The child's influence and ability to bring sense to her father was seen as cheap theatrics, but ended with the assertion that the film was not second rate for employing such theatrics.

Not that the performances weren't first rate.

But the paintings are not first-rate.

Indeed, the Welsh contribution to man-made beauty is not first-rate.

Of course, none of these dramatic devices would count for anything if the underlying game was not first-rate.