"Aspiring" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... proprieties of his rank; but he had risen in his own estimation above the honours so willingly paid to his genius, and was again longing for additional renown. Not content with being acknowledged as the first poet of the age, and a respectable orator in the House of Lords, he was aspiring to the eclat of a man of gallantry; so that many of the most ungracious peculiarities of his temper, though brought under better discipline, were again ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... him to move in the first society, I cannot deny that," continued young Bernard, "but, in my judgment, something more is necessary in order to warrant his boldness in aspiring to connect himself with one of the ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... soul lights them—a young soul yet, but it will mature, if the body lives; and neither father nor mother has a spirit to compare with it. Partaking of the essence of each, it will one day be better than either—stronger, much purer, more aspiring. Rose is a still, and sometimes a stubborn girl now; her mother wants to make of her such a woman as she is herself—a woman of dark and dreary duties; and Rose has a mind full-set, thick-sown with the germs of ideas her mother never ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... existence of the Deity; and persuaded of this, it followed necessarily, as part of His eternal justice, that there must be another life for man who suffers so unjustly here. Hence, I argued, the sovereign reason in man for aspiring to the possession of that second life; and hence, too, a worship founded on the love of God, and of his neighbour, and an unceasing impulse to dignify his nature by generous sacrifices. I had already made myself familiar with this doctrine, and ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... flowed daily into this little pool. Every variety of those beautiful evergreens which feather the coast of Maine, and dip their wings in the very spray of its ocean foam, found here a representative. There were aspiring black spruces, crowned on the very top with heavy coronets of cones; there were balsamic firs, whose young buds breathe the scent of strawberries; there were cedars, black as midnight clouds, and white pines with their swaying plumage of needle-like leaves, strewing the ground beneath ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... wife, or son! Hear her black trumpet through the land proclaim, That not to be corrupted is the shame. In soldier, churchman, patriot, man in pow'r, 'Tis av'rice all, ambition is no more! See all our nobles begging to be slaves! See all our fools aspiring to be knaves! The wit of cheats, the courage of a whore, Are what ten thousand envy and adore; All, all look up with reverential awe, At crimes that 'scape or triumph o'er the law; While truth, worth, ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... the same, and the service seemed as beautiful and solemn as might have been that chanted over the stiff, frozen body of the high-souled but too aspiring boy. The service ended, and we were left alone in the chapel. In one corner of it is the box in which those who can, leave a contribution for the support of the establishment. No regular charge is made, but probably most ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... present, gave much content, and with the generall applause, yet it proved a most infortunate match to him and his Posterity, and all Christendome, for all his Alliance with so many great Princes, which put on him aspiring thoughts, and was so ambitious as not to content himselfe with his hereditary patrimony of one of the greatest Princes in Germany; but must aspire to a Kingdome, beleeving that his great allyance would carry ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant, should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, should he be proved innocent of the crime of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess hated her. Often had she seen, or imagined that she had seen, this fair creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and sometimes she thought these glances were perceived, and even returned. Now and then she had seen them talking ...
— The Lady, or the Tiger? • Frank R. Stockton
... power was then paramount, not only in Cork, but throughout all Ireland. He discussed the project with one of his colleagues, Mr. John O'Connor, to whom he expressed the view that Mr. Chamberlain was aspiring to replace Mr. Gladstone in the leadership, and that he would do nothing which could assist him in this purpose, because he thought that he "could squeeze more out of Gladstone than he could out of Chamberlain."] I shall reply rather effusively. ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... acknowledged to be so, and the memory of it still remains, and very old lawyers still love to recall its glories. It was composed of Lord Chancellor Campbell and the Lords Justices Knight-Bruce and Turner. Bethell (afterwards Lord Westbury) was an ambitious and aspiring man, and was always most caustic in his criticisms. He had been arguing before the above Court one day, and upon his turning round after finishing his argument, some counsel in the row behind him asked, "Well, Bethell, how will their judgment go?" Bethell replied, ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... thrust his doting father from his chair, And place himself in the empyreal heaven, Mov'd me to manage arms against thy state. What better precedent than mighty Jove? Nature, that fram'd us of four elements Warring within our breasts for regiment, [124] Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds: Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous architecture of the world, And measure every wandering planet's course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as the restless spheres, Will us ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... people. A poet's ghost is the only one that survives for his fellow-mortals, after his bones are in the dust,—and be not ghostly, but cherishing many hearts with his own warmth in the chillest atmosphere of life. What other fame is worth aspiring for? Or, let me speak it more boldly, what other long-enduring fame can exist? We neither remember nor care anything for the past, except as the poet has made it intelligibly noble and sublime to our comprehension. The shades of the mighty ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... education,—but the modern languages were indifferently taught by French and German exiles, and other subjects were treated still more indifferently. The two noble studies of history and philosophy were presented to the young aspiring soul in narrow, prejudiced text-books, which have long since been consigned to that bourn from which no literary work ever returns. As already stated, Hawthorne's best study was Latin, and in that he acquired good proficiency; ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... and retired to bed: but ah! not to repose. The unusual excitement of the evening, the light, the splendor, the luxury, the guests, and among them all the figures of Claudia and the viscount, haunting memory and stimulating imagination, forbade repose. Ever, in the midst of all his busy, useful, aspiring life he was conscious, deep in his heart, of a gnawing anguish, whose name was Claudia Merlin. To-night this deep-seated anguish tortured him like the vulture of Prometheus. One vivid picture was always before his mind's eye—the ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... returned to her like spectres stealing across the sand. They lurked like spectres among the dense masses of the trees. She strove not to see their pale shapes, not to hear their terrible voices. She strove to draw calm once more from this infinite calm of silently-growing things aspiring towards the sun. But with each step she took the torment in her heart increased. At last she came to the deeper darkness and the blanched sand, and saw pine needles strewed about her feet. Then she stood still, instinctively listening ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... sight, and, it may be, taking a throw for the "gal." The crowd presents a singular contrast of beings. Some are dressed to the very extreme of fantastic fashion, and would seem to have wasted their brains in devising colours for their backs; others, aspiring to the seriously genteel, are fashioned in very extravagant broadcloth; while a third group is dressed in most niggardly attire, which sets very loosely. In addition to this they wear very large black, white, and grey-coloured felt ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... zealously co-operated with his party in conferring the title of king on Alfonso, had intended to reserve the authority to himself. He probably found more difficulty in controlling the operations of the jealous and aspiring aristocracy, with whom he was associated, than he had imagined; and he was willing to aid the opposite party in maintaining a sufficient degree of strength to form a counterpoise to that of the confederates, and thus, while he made his own services the more necessary to the latter, to provide ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... sauntering between flowerless beds with his companion, stood stock still. The Chief Whip of a political party is a devil of a fellow. To the aspiring young politician he is much more a devil of a fellow than the Prime Minister or any Secretary of State. If a Chief Whip breathes the suggestion that a man might possibly stand for election as a Member of Parliament, it means that at any suitable vacancy, or at ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... many a throb of the young poet-heart, Aspiring to the ideal bliss of Fame, Deems that Time soon may sanctify his claim Among the sons of song to dwell apart.— Time passes—passes! The aspiring flame Of Hope shrinks down; the white flower Poesy ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... town of 40,000 inhabitants is spread over a surface which would suffice in England for a city of four times the size. Our towns in England—and the towns, indeed, of Europe generally—have been built as they have been wanted. No aspiring ambition as to hundreds of thousands of people warmed the bosoms of their first founders. Two or three dozen men required habitations in the same locality, and clustered them together closely. Many such have failed and died out of the world's ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... thought at the time. It was then that I did my first newspaper scribbling, and most unexpectedly to me it stirred up a fine sensation in the community. It did, indeed, and I was very proud of it, too. I was a printer's "devil," and a progressive and aspiring one. My uncle had me on his paper (the Weekly Hannibal Journal, two dollars a year, in advance—five hundred subscribers, and they paid in cord-wood, cabbages, and unmarketable turnips), and on a lucky summer's day he left town to be gone a week, and asked me if ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... of my last letter I have been a traveller. A strong desire seized me of visiting remote regions. My first impulse was to go and see Paris. It was a trivial objection to my aspiring mind, that I did not understand a word of the language, since I certainly intend some time in my life to see Paris, and equally certainly intend never to learn the language; therefore that could be no objection. However, I am very ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... though his title was not yet recognized. This was plainly contrary to his declaration, by which the settlement of the nation was referred to a parliament; such a step would make all that the Prince had hitherto done pass for an aspiring ambition only to raise himself; and it would disgust those who had been hitherto the best affected to his designs, and make them less concerned in the quarrel if, instead of staying till the nation should offer him the crown, he would assume ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... lay a more fairy-like garden than he had ever dreamed of. But he had read of, though never looked on such, and seemed to know it from times of old. It was laid out in straight lines, with soft walks of old turf, and in it grew all kinds of straight aspiring things: their ambition seemed—to get up, not to spread abroad. He stepped out of the window, drawn as by the enchantment of one of childhood's dreams, and went wandering down a broad walk, his foot sinking deep in the velvety grass, ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... the statement—it bears his earmark. It will be remembered that the Earl of Beaconsfield had a stock form for acknowledging receipt of the many books sent to him by aspiring authors. It ran something like this: "The Earl of Beaconsfield begs to thank the gifted author of——for a copy of his book, and gives the hearty assurance that he will waste no time ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... he loaded me with benefits the more he raised my opinion of my own merit, which, still outstripping the rewards he conferred on me, inspired me rather with dissatisfaction than gratitude. And thus, by preferring me beyond my merit or first expectation, he made me an envious aspiring enemy, whom perhaps a more moderate bounty would have preserved a ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... possible to the young student, come to advance himself in his chosen field of knowledge, quite such a thrill as that which must be his when he matriculates at one of the scores of educational institutions in that quarter of Paris to which the ardent, aspiring youth of all the western world have been directing their ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... people, as we know, has had its legend of a "golden age" and of its return—legends which will hardly be forgotten, however prosaic the world may become, while man himself remains the aspiring, never quite contented being he is. And yet in truth, since we are no longer children, we might well question the advantage of the return to us of a condition of life in which, by the nature of the case, the ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... that despite occasional imperfections (of which he himself is conscious), they form a consistent whole, and in their spirit and sentiment they are akin to some of the most noble utterances of the great minds and hearts whose words have been like torches to show what heights a strong aspiring ...
— Sonnets • Nizam-ud-din-Ahmad, (Nawab Nizamat Jung Bahadur)
... part be systematically misplaced; that though the beneficent and disinterested spirit of Christianity, and her obvious tendency to promote domestic comfort and general happiness, cannot but extort applause; yet that her aspiring after more than ordinary excellence, by exciting secret misgivings in others, or a painful sense of inferiority not unmixed with envy, cannot fail often to disgust and offend. The word of God teaches us, that though such of the ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... shrines of the ancestors of the race. Thus has modern Shinto, so far as it is organized and has a mouth with which to speak, following the abdicating proclivities of the ancient social order, excommunicated itself from its religious heritage, aspiring to be nothing more ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... sarcasm that unprincipled parasites in his community were much disturbed. In one of his discourses he used the following expression: "A dissembler is one proud of applause—will advertise himself for office—dazzling the public man with high pretext, like aspiring Absolom, 'Oh that I were made judge in the land, that every man might come unto me and I would do him justice.' Such subjects to applause and hypocrisy will, even when the destinies of their country are at stake, be to a commonwealth what ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... understood in Washington that great men were most condescending, while little men, with large expectations, were most aspiring, there was nothing left but to cut a course between the two. As for the latter quality of gentlemen, they never stood at trifles, and when they failed to get the big business, had not the slightest objection to the small,—which was the doing all Mr. President Pierce's thinking. Therefore, be it ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... genius of Liberty breathing in France. This ministry once overthrown in the interests of commerce the party of Liberty would show itself; for it is not dead! And if you know your duties, if your commissioners leave at once, if you extend the hand to the strangers aspiring to destroy all forms of tyranny, France is saved and ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... tone invited—at least it did not discourage—further inquiry. Mr. Gardner was bored. Amateurs who "occasionally write" were the bane of him who, having a signature of his own in the leading local paper, represented to the aspiring mind the gilded and lofty peaks of the unattainable. However he must play this youth as a ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... supposing that the Church as we know it, has the same measurement which the man with the golden rod has measured for the eternal courts of Jerusalem, that shall be the joy of the whole earth. The very genius of the Gospel is aspiring. It is content with nothing short of universality for the sweep, and eternity for the duration, and absolute completeness for the measure, of its bestowments on man. We should be like men on a voyage of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... dumplings, sops in the pan, and delicious toast and water in incredible quantities. Beef, mutton, lamb, pork, and veal are ours; and if you were not the most restless and dissatisfied of human beings, you would never think of aspiring to enjoy them.' ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... from the mythical rishi or inspired saint whose name the gotra bears". There is thus nothing to bar the conjecture that the exogamous gotras of the whole Brahmans were once a form of totem-kindred, which (like aspiring non-Aryan stocks at the present day) dropped the totem-name and renamed the septs from some eponymous hero, medicine-man, ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... your aspiring to the political principles of our old Cavaliers; but embrace them all fully, and not merely this and that feeling, whilst in other points you speak the canting foppery of the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... along the library shelves for the books we should take with us, until we remembered that in that country there were books in the running streams. Rosalind had gone so far as to lay aside a certain volume of sermons whose aspiring note had more than once made music of the momentary discords of her life; but I reminded her that such a work would be strangely out of place in a forest where there were sermons in stones. Finally we had decided to leave books behind and go free-minded as ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... been aspiring to great honours since I wrote to you last, to wit the F.R.S., and found no little to my astonishment that I had a chance of it, and so went in. I must tell you that they have made the admission more difficult than it used to be. Candidates are not elected by the Society alone, but fifteen ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... how long I talked, I do not know, but at last (probably in self-defense), he suggested that we take a walk. We strolled about the garden a few minutes and each moment my spirits rose, for he treated me, not merely as an aspiring student, but as a fellow author in whom he could freely confide. At last, in his gentle way, he turned me toward ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... quench the sacred fire of genius, and to crowd down all noble aspirations, whenever these evidences of a high manhood were shown by those whose skins were black! Ah! we may never know how much of grandeur of achievement, the results of which the country might now be enjoying, had not those restless, aspiring minds been fettered by all that was the echo of a terrible voice, which, putting to an ignoble use the holy words of Divinity, cried up and down the land unceasingly, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther!" ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... worded—the word has gained perpetuity when it is written. Reason waits her completed triumph from the written work, which converts, and alone can convert, the thought of the individual mind into that of the universal mind; thus constituting the fine act of one aspiring intelligence the common possession of the species, and collecting the produce of all wits into the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... 1040), Nicolaus Cabasilas (d. 1371), and Symeon, like Nicholas, archbishop of Thessalonica (d. 1429), were the most conspicuous representatives of this Oriental mysticism. They left all the dogmas and institutions of the Church untouched; aspiring above and beyond these, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... princess would never have permitted him to carry into execution. Madame d'Egmont, however, was not so sure that her secret was safe, and she lost not an instant in repairing to the house of M. de Sartines, to obtain from him a against the aspiring shopman, who, seized in the street, was conveyed away, and confined as a maniac in a madhouse, where, but for a circumstance you shall hear, he would doubtless be still. I happened to be with the king when ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... diverging with opposing toil Contend below for moisture and for soil; Round the tall Elm the flattering Ivies bend, And strangle, as they clasp, their struggling friend; Envenom'd dews from Mancinella flow, And scald with caustic touch the tribes below; 50 Dense shadowy leaves on stems aspiring borne With blight and mildew thin the realms of corn; And insect hordes with restless tooth devour The unfolded bud, and ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... and breed from running at large. This latter set loose all the winds of popular fury: it was cruel, it was aristocratic; it was in the interest of rich men and pampered foreign bulls; and it ended the career of many an aspiring politician in a blast of democratic indignation and scorn. The politician who relied upon immediate and constant contact with the people certainly earned all the emoluments of office he received. His successes were hardly purchased by laborious affability. "A friend of mine," says Ford, "once ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... woe He lifts for pity, limp his offspring show. For him requiring woman's arts to please Infantile tastes with babe reluctances, No race of giants! In the woman's veins Persuasion ripely runs, through hers the pains. Her choice of him, should kind occasion nod, Aspiring blends the Titan with the God; Yet unto dwarf and mortal, she, submiss In her high Lady's mandate, yields the kiss; And is it needed that Love's daintier brute Be snared as hunter, she will tempt pursuit. She is great Nature's ever intimate ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of about twenty white people, including the Administrator, his secretary and staff; the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Accountant, who controlled the purse; a doctor, whose time was fairly well taken up; an aspiring light of the legal profession, who made and interpreted the laws; and, finally, the gallant Colonel and officers of the North-Western Rhodesia Native Police, a smart body of 380 natives, officered by ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... of Grace (I address you as a religious woman), be fervent and persevering in your prayers for your husband; and by your example endeavour to allure him to that heaven towards which you are yourself aspiring: that, if your husband obey not the word, as the sacred writer says, he may, without the word, be won by the conversation (or ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... Ostentation (which might be called Vanity) and Ambition, organs which antagonize Modesty and Ideality, as those of the median line antagonize Reverence. Next to Ambition comes the region of Business Energy, a less aspiring and ostentatious element than Ambition. Next to this come the regions of Adhesiveness, the gregarious social impulse, Aggressiveness, the intermediate between Adhesiveness and Combativeness, possessing much of the character of each, and Self-sufficiency, which relies ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, November 1887 - Volume 1, Number 10 • Various
... Athenians again most eagerly allied themselves with the Thebans, and, aspiring to supremacy at sea, sent embassies round to the other maritime states, and brought over to their own side those who were willing to revolt from the Spartans. Meanwhile the Thebans, alone in their country of Boeotia, constantly skirmishing with the Lacedaemonians, and not fighting ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... may permissibly bear the application which I purpose to make of them in this sermon, re-echoing only (and aspiring to nothing more) the thoughts which the season has already, I suppose, more or less, suggested to most of us. Smooth motion is imperceptible; it is the jolts that tell us that we are advancing. Though every day be a New Year's Day, still the alteration in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... about my friend to interest you in his fortunes, when you meet him wandering hither and thither over the great domain of the Republic of Letters—or, must I plead more warmly in his behalf? I can only urge on you that he does not present himself as fit for the top seats at the library table,—as aspiring to the company of those above him,—of classical, statistical, political, philosophical, historical, or antiquarian high dignitaries of his class, of whom he is at best but the poor relation. Treat him not, as you treat such illustrious guests as these! Toss him about ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... since," continued Dashall, "an aspiring young limb of the law, of property, in expectancy (but that is neither here nor there) and fertile in expedient, contrived to insinuate himself into the good fellowship of a few bon vivants; and resolving to irradiate with 'surprising ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... virtues still flourish in the vigor of youth; and thy mother in the Lord, who vies with the former, and strives by new and unwonted endeavors to dissolve the bands of custom; and thy sister likewise, in some things their imitator, and in some aspiring to excel them, and to surpass in the merits of virginity the attainments of her progenitors, and both in word and deed diligently inviting thee, her sister, as is meet, to the same competition. Remember these, and the ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... inferior need to be established; and individual action and supremacy are the foundations upon which all history is built. Only by stirring up the deep pool of human life into seething turmoil and unrest could the tendency to stagnation be overcome, the best and most aspiring rising to the top, the dull and heavy sinking to the bottom, and the element of thought permeating the whole with ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... what high respect for society in the abstract go to such furnishing that the little parlor was interesting at all. I could imagine the great day of certain purchases, the bewildering shops of the next large town, the aspiring anxious woman, the clumsy sea-tanned man in his best clothes, so eager to be pleased, but at ease only when they were safe back in the sailboat again, going down the bay with their precious freight, the hoarded money all spent and nothing ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... should not know your fathers, even! I'd have you spring, like toadstools, from the soil— Mere sons of women—nothing more nor less— All base-born, and all equal. There, my lord, There is a simple commonwealth for you! In which aspiring merit takes the ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... nose, which by its natural conformation betrayed an aspiring character, and looked dubiously ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... gold; the circumference of the exterior of the wheel was of gold; the range of the spokes was of silver. Chrysolites and gems placed along the yoke in order, gave a bright light from the reflected sun. And while the aspiring Phaeton is admiring these things, and is examining the workmanship, behold! the watchful Aurora opened her purple doors in the ruddy east, and her halls filled with roses. The stars disappear, the troops whereof Lucifer gathers, and moves the last from his ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... anything save appeals to their passions. And capital, shaken in its sense of security, no longer ventures boldly through the land, calling forth all the energies of toil and enterprise, and extending to every workman his reward. Now, Lenny, take this piece of advice. You are young, clever, and aspiring: men rarely succeed in changing the world; but a man seldom fails of success if he lets the world alone, and resolves to make the best of it. You are in the midst of the great crisis of your life; it is the struggle between ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... affections were in favor of the former, while her guardian, the chief officer in Red River, preferred the latter. In his zeal to succeed in the choice he had made for the young lady, this gentleman sent for the half-breed and reprimanded him for aspiring to the hand of a lady, accustomed, as he expressed it, to the first society. The young man, without saying a word, put on his hat and walked out of the room; but being the leading man among his countrymen, ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... To the aspiring writer this book may seem to be merely a catalogue of "Don'ts", the gist of which is, "Don't write"; but that is to misread me. Short story writing is not easy, and I cannot make it so, even if I would; but it is far from my purpose ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... that most preposterous idea? Surely not from the only source where we might expect to learn about souls—not from the Bible, for there we distinctly read of 'the spirit of the sons of man,' and immediately afterwards of 'the spirit of the beasts,' one aspiring, the other not so. And a necessary consequence of the spirit is a life after the death of the body. Let any one wait in a frequented thoroughfare for one short hour, and watch the sufferings of the poor brutes that pass by. Then, unless he denies the Divine Providence, ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon
... his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God." What an uplifting!—a type of all that God works in his human beings. The head, down-bent with sin, care, sorrow, pain, is uplifted; the grovelling will sends its gaze heavenward; the earth is no more the one object of the aspiring spirit; we lift our eyes to God; we bend no longer even to his will, but raise ourselves up towards his will, for his will has become our will, and that ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... thy course, Let virtue teach thee firmly to pursue 530 The gradual paths of an aspiring change: For birth and life and death, and that strange state Before the naked powers that thro' the world Wander like winds have found a human home, All tend to perfect happiness, and urge 535 The restless wheels ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... party of children from the slums at her home. She addressed one particularly pretty and intelligent-looking little girl, who listened shyly. She urged the child to speak without embarrassment. The little one complied, aspiring: ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... will be the mind of coming man; if not the final attainment of his intellectual progress, at all events a long period of self-satisfaction, assumed as finality. We talk of the "ever aspiring soul"; we take for granted that if one religion passes away, another must arise. But what if man presently find himself without spiritual needs? Such modification of his being cannot be deemed impossible; ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... native woods, where they dwell in genteel independence, enjoying their entailed estates and living on their own cocoa nuts. There will be found the Gibbon, whose Decline and Fall when yielding the Palm to some aspiring rival is swifter than that of the Roman Empire; the Barberry Ape, so called from feeding exclusively on Barberries; the Chimpanzee—an African corruption of Jump-and-see, the name given to the animal by his first European discoverers in compliment to his alertness; ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... emerged from this searching inquiry with credit, as they have done in the many investigations to which they have been subjected, and no high-minded and aspiring young railway novice need ever blush for the traditions of ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... always reserves the right to discard the favorite of to-day as he has discarded the favorite of yesterday. In this audience, there is no such thing as subordination; the lowest demagogue, any noisy subaltern, a Hebert or Jacques Roux, aspiring to step out of the ranks, overbidding the charlatans in office in order to obtain their places. Even with a complete and lasting ascendancy over an organized band of docile supporters, the Jacobin leaders would be feeble for lack of reliable ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... was thinking. And the alert, aspiring pose of her head made his thumb nervously munch at the bit of clay he ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... which bind the representative to his constituents are strengthened by motives of a more selfish nature. His pride and vanity attach him to a form of government which favors his pretensions and gives him a share in its honors and distinctions. Whatever hopes or projects might be entertained by a few aspiring characters, it must generally happen that a great proportion of the men deriving their advancement from their influence with the people, would have more to hope from a preservation of the favor, than from innovations in the government subversive of the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... France. The impression which the inimitable choir of Beauvais produced, was widely different from that which we felt on entering the lofty dome of the Pantheon at Paris. The light pinnacles, the fretted roof, the aspiring form of the Gothic edifice, seemed to have been framed by the hands of aerial beings, and produced, even from a distance, that impression of grace and airiness which it was the peculiar object of this species of Gothic architecture to excite. On passing the high archway which covers ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... to marry you—and yet I should find it very unpleasant to be called Madame Chardon. You can see that. And now that you understand the difficulties of Paris life, you will know how many roundabout ways you must take to reach your end; very well, then, you must admit that Louise was aspiring to an all but impossible piece of Court favor; she was quite unknown, she is not rich, and therefore she could not afford to neglect any ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... procession. From block to block I flitted, like some aspiring bird on the crest of a wave. My heart was full, my eyes fixed on one object—that tall, noble figure, with a blue watered silk scarf across his royal bosom, and a half-moon hat, with dipping points, gracefully ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... The sky had cleared in the sudden way so common at midnight in these islands. The guard at Lesbirel's, turning out to patrol, had at last caught sight of the fire burning on the point above them. Taking alarm, the sergeant, who was an intelligent and aspiring soldier, guessed that something was amiss, and set off at the head of his men to search for the escaped prey. Taking the road to the manor, where he had reason to believe Lempriere's messenger would be found, and spreading ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... courtyard was a little dingier and the walls more stained, otherwise it hadn't changed much. But she herself felt terribly changed and worn. To begin with, she was no longer below, her face raised to heaven, feeling content and courageous and aspiring to a handsome lodging. She was right up under the roof, among the most wretched, in the dirtiest hole, the part that never received a ray of sunshine. And that explained her tears; she could scarcely feel ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... earnestness and dignity of the Prayer Book, and looking with great and intelligent dislike at the teaching and practical working of the more popular system which, under the name of Evangelical Christianity, was aspiring to dominate religious opinion, and which, often combining some of the most questionable features of Methodism and Calvinism, denounced with fierce intolerance everything that deviated from its formulas and watchwords. And as his loyalty to the Church of England ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... nothing else can protect it against the levity of courts, and the greater levity of the multitude. That to talk of hereditary monarchy, without anything else of hereditary reverence in the commonwealth, was a low-minded absurdity, fit only for those detestable "fools aspiring to be knaves," who began to forge in 1789 the false money of the French constitution.—That it is one fatal objection to all NEW fancied and NEW FABRICATED republics (among a people who, once possessing such an advantage, ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... my boy In what far part of the world? The boy I loved best of all in the school?— I, the teacher, the old maid, the virgin heart, Who made them all my children. Did I know my boy aright, Thinking of him as a spirit aflame, Active, ever aspiring? Oh, boy, boy, for whom I prayed and prayed In many a watchful hour at night, Do you remember the letter I wrote you Of the beautiful love of Christ? And whether you ever took it or not, My, boy, wherever you are, Work for your soul's sake, That all the clay of you, ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... was my fortune to meet at this important period,—all, though of unequal, yet congenial powers,—all of rich and wide, rather than aspiring genius,—all free to the extent of the horizon their eye took in,—all fresh with impulse, racy with experience; never to be lost sight of, or superseded, but always to be ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... man's high aspiring mind Burn in him with so proud a breath, When all his haughty views can find In this world yields to Death? The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise, The rich, the poor, and great, and small, Are each but worm's anatomies To ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... He is incomprehensible; but take Him out of the man class and put Him in the God class and you can understand Him. He also can be measured by the work He came to perform; it was more than a man's task. No man aspiring to be a God could have done what He did; it required a God condescending ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... men, was born in 1665. His father followed the fortunes of Mr. Snap, who enjoyed a reputable office under the sheriff of London and Middlesex; and his mother was the daughter of Scragg Hollow, Esq., of Hockley-in-the-Hole. He was scarce settled at school before he gave marks of his lofty and aspiring temper, and was regarded by his schoolfellows with that deference which men generally pay to those superior geniuses who will exact it of them. If an orchard was to be robbed, Wild was consulted; and though he was himself seldom concerned in the execution of the design, yet ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the rhetoricians. If war was not a thing of the past, the shadow of the pax Romana was over all the small states, and the aspiring provincial's readiest road to fame was through words rather than deeds. The arrival of a famous rhetorician to lecture was one of the important events in any great city's annals; and Lucian's works are full of references to the impression these men produced, and the envy they enjoyed. ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... the conversation back from the aspiring Edith to Richard Harrington, and as old Rachel soon came in to remove her mistress' breakfast, Kitty took her leave, saying as she bade her friend ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... influence of Rudolf Eucken's personality and teaching is spreading with such rapidity and power from west to east and from north to south is a proof that an increasing number of men and women are aspiring after a religion of spiritual life such as was presented by the Founder of our Christianity. All the Life-systems of our day must converge towards such ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... in the mean time been a frequent visitor at the house of the Count de Tourville, where he ever received that friendly welcome which made him hope that he would not disapprove of his aspiring to the hand of Constance, who appeared to have no doubts on the subject. She knew that Nigel was of noble birth though destitute of fortune, and she felt sure that her father would not refuse to give her to one, her equal in birth, who was of her own religion, and whose heart ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... necessary by those who have had considerable experience.... Anyone who comes out hunting without knowing the rules of the game, is a constant source of danger to those who are near." This is all very true of course; but the aspiring Diana may well ask "what are these said rules, and where can I obtain them?" I feel sure that all hunting novices would greatly appreciate and study an orthodox code of hunting laws, as it would be far pleasanter for a lady to avoid mistakes by their ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... pews in the old meeting-houses had towering partition walls, which extended up so high that only the tops of the tallest heads could be seen when the occupants were seated. Permissions to build were often given with modifying restrictions to the aspiring pew-builders, as for instance is recorded of the Haverhill church, "provided they would not build so high as to damnify and hinder the light of them windows," or of the Waterbury church, "if the pues ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... proportions and interdependencies. But to carry beyond this point the analogy between the two arts would be fantastic and unhelpful. The one exists in space, the other in time. The one seeks to beget in the spectator a state of placid, though it may be of aspiring, contemplation; the other, a state of more or less acute tension. The resemblances between music and architecture are, as is well known, much more extensive and illuminating. It might not be wholly fanciful to call music a sort of middle term ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... others who are without character, merely because the former have an upward tendency in their lives, a reaching-up principle, which gradually but surely unfolds and elevates them to positions of honor and trust. There is something which everybody admires in an aspiring soul, one whose tendency is upward and onward, in spite of hindrances and in ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... citizen, my name is Caius Mucius; an enemy, I wished to slay an enemy, nor have I less of resolution to suffer death than I had to inflict it. Both to act and to suffer with fortitude is a Roman's part. Nor have I alone harboured such feelings towards you; there is after me a long train of persons aspiring to the same honour. Therefore, if you choose it, prepare yourself for this peril, to contend for your life every hour; to have the sword and the enemy in the very entrance of your pavilion; this is the war which we the Roman youth declare against you; dread not an army ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... and they and their younger brother, the graceful poku, smaller, and of a rounder contour, race together towards the grassy fens. We venture to call the poku after the late Major Vardon, a noble-hearted African traveller; but fully anticipate that some aspiring Nimrod will prefer that his own name should go down to posterity on the back ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the place, Crowned with that sacred pile, so vast, so high, That whether 'tis a part of earth or sky Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud Aspiring mountain or descending cloud. Paul's, the late theme of such a muse, whose flight Has bravely reached and soared above thy height, Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire, Or zeal more fierce than they, thy fall conspire; Secure, while thee the best of poets ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... a place where she could rest after her long wanderings, and let the bleeding wounds of her heart heal in the stillness and peace of beautiful natural scenery. She passed a few quiet, happy years in Constance desiring and demanding nothing but a little rest and peace, aspiring to but one thing—to make of the son whom Providence had given her as a compensation for all her sufferings, a strong, a resolute, and ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... remember that the self he means is the highest self, that consciousness which he looks upon as open to the influx of the divine essence from which it came, and towards which all its upward tendencies lead, always aspiring, never resting; as he sings ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... with apparent sincerity in the desire that the slave trade might be effectually suppressed. They seemed to consider that this trade was promoted by the mother country as one means of preventing the colony from aspiring to independence. They admitted the abstract injustice of slavery, and one remarked, that a difference of the color of the skin was a misfortune, not a crime. They were not, however, disposed to entertain a thought of emancipation, without being fully compensated ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... imposed an unnecessary restraint. Since their natures were holy, he urged that the angels should obey the dictates of their own will. He sought to create sympathy for himself, by representing that God had dealt unjustly with him in bestowing supreme honor upon Christ. He claimed that in aspiring to greater power and honor he was not aiming at self-exaltation, but was seeking to secure liberty for all the inhabitants of heaven, that by this means they might attain to a ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... "Within the Boy's aspiring brain For Study still there lies a craving, And what is won against the grain Is never really worth the having; This boasted Categorical Imperative is clearly vicious,— Pastors and masters, one and all, Must ascertain ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley
... classes, in consequence of the Gaulish invasion, became intolerable. They became involved in debt, and thus were in the power of their creditors. Manlius undertook to be their defender, but the envy of the patricians caused him to be accused of aspiring to the supreme power, and he was, in spite of his great services, sentenced to death and hurled from the Tarpeian rock. His error was in premature reform. But, in the year 367 B.C., the tribunes Licinius and L. Sextius secured the passage of three memorable laws in the Curiata Tributa—the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... numerous and respectful audience in the public square, a well-dressed man pressed through the crowd and invited us to do him the honour of taking tea at his house. His mansion exhibited every [Page 23] evidence of affluence; and he, a scholar by profession, aspiring to the honours of the mandarinate, explained, as he ordered for us an ample repast, that he would have felt ashamed if scholars from the West had been allowed to pass through his city without anyone offering them hospitality. What courtesy! Could ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... extraordinary capacity raised the artisan to wealth and turned the "man" into the "master." But for the most part even industry and endowment were powerless against the inertia of custom and the dead-weight of environment. The universal ignorance of the working class broke down the aspiring force of genius. Mute inglorious Miltons were ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... costume of rank and station and ecclesiastical profession,—cowls and hoods of Franciscan and Dominican,—picturesque headdresses of peasant-women of different districts,—plumes and ruffs of more aspiring gentility,—mixed with every quaint phase of foreign costume belonging to the strangers from different parts of the earth;—for, like the old Jewish Passover, this celebration of Holy Week had its assemblage of Parthians, Medes, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various |
