"Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... tainted with rivalry! Always the husband and wife are held down by this mutual envy, forever dragging at their heels, constantly holding them back from the lofty heights of spiritual power to which they aspire!" ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... equally honorable province of letters. We may well believe, then, that amongst such a people as the Chinese, whose very breath almost is at the emperor's pleasure, such a distinction is the chiefest ambition of every man; for all may aspire to it. ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... there went from her life that wholesome companionship of boy and girl which contains all the happiness necessary for their immaturity, and also stimulates their growth in every way by holding out the alluring prospect of the fulfilment of those hopes of their being towards which their youth should aspire from the first, insensibly, but without pause. Having once known this companionship, Beth did not thrive without it. She had no other interest in its place to take her out of herself, and the time hung heavy on her hands. With her temperament, however, more than a momentary ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... excuse: for not one of us hoped ever again to behold the rocks and placid water of our harbour, to continue the day's work to the timely close of the day, to sit in quiet places, to dream a fruitful future, to aspire untroubled in security and ease: and surely a man, whatever his disposition and strength of mind, being all at once thus confronted, may without blame do that which, as a reward for noble endeavour, he had hoped in all honour to ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... times!—to a gaping and censorious world. For, as you are aware, I cannot offer her an untried heart; 'tis somewhat worn by many barterings. But I know that this heart beats with accentuation in her presence; and when I come to her some day and clasp her in my arms, as I aspire to do, I trust that her lips may not turn away from mine and that she may be more glad because I am so near and that her stainless heart may sound an echoing chime. For, with a great and troubled adoration, I love her as I have ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... ten strong are these suitors, but many more by much: from Dulichium came there fifty and two, they and their servants; twice twelve crossed the seas hither from Samos; from Zacynthus twice ten; of our native Ithacans, men of chief note, are twelve who aspire to the bed and crown of Penelope; and all these under one strong roof—a fearful odds against two! My father, there is need of caution, lest the cup which your great mind so thirsts to taste of vengeance prove bitter to yourself in the ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
... mark of any master; and for the student who does not aspire so high as to be numbered with the giants, it is still the one quality in which he may improve himself at will. Passion, wisdom, creative force, the power of mystery or colour, are allotted in the hour of birth, and can be neither learned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... vouchsafe me an Audience of Quarter of an Hour; I shall look upon it as the greatest Condescension in you, and as the greatest Honour done me. I told him he mistook my Title, and gave me one I never did aspire to; but that I was very ready to hear and serve him, for I had seen him often at Court offering Petitions, which were always rejected, and I ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... camouflaged. They knew that to educate him would be to make him dissatisfied with his lot at the bottom of the ladder. They knew that to educate him would introduce the leaven of divine discontent into his being. They knew that to educate him would cause him to aspire to something higher than hard labor or menial service. They knew that to educate him would cause him to know that robbing him of the ballot was reducing him to a pariah in American life and society and making him a political outcast. They knew that to educate the Negro would cause him to know ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris
... here tonight who knows it better. I have known what it is to be a street-waif, a bootblack, living upon a crust of bread and sleeping in cellar stairways and under empty wagons. I have known what it is to dare and to aspire, to dream mighty dreams and to see them perish—to see all the fair flowers of my spirit trampled into the mire by the wild-beast powers of my life. I know what is the price that a working-man pays for knowledge—I have paid for it with food and sleep, with agony of body and mind, with health, ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... never been assailed, would but add to the general belief in your own guilt, and the certainty of your fate; such charges would be regarded as a paltry subterfuge, and no one would credit them. Go, fellow—the bat cannot consort with the eagle, nor can such as you aspire to even the most distant familiarity with persons of my rank. Depart, instantly; and to-morrow you shall receive a pecuniary reward that will amply compensate you for the disappointment ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine nature; that he should purify his soul from her mortal and terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites, enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue the wild ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... ordinary planes is the forming of strong mental images important and useful, but when we come to consider the phenomena of the astral plane we begin to see what an important part is played there by strong mental images or visualized ideas. The better you know what you desire, wish or aspire to, the stronger will be your thought vibrations of that thing, of course. Well, then, the stronger that you are able to picture the thing in your mind—to visualize it to yourself—the stronger will be your actual knowledge and thought-form of that thing. ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... called Cunaxa, being about five hundred furlongs distant from Babylon. And here Clearchus beseeching Cyrus before the fight to retire behind the combatants, and not expose himself to hazard, they say he replied, "What is this, Clearchus? Would you have me, who aspire to empire, show myself unworthy of it?" But if Cyrus committed a great fault in entering headlong into the midst of danger, and not paying any regard to his own safety, Clearchus was as much to blame, if not more, in refusing to lead the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... adequately fed, and both able and willing to perform thrice the work per day he now does or can; seeing the more efficient often step above them to posts better paid and more respected, the dullest workers will aspire to greater knowledge and skill in order that they too may attain more eligible positions. "It is the first step that costs"—the others follow almost of course. If the Aristocracy of Ireland would unitedly resolve that ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... plumping rain, have been sometimes tempted to envy them their fate. For all who love shelter and the blessings of the sun, who hate dark weather and perpetual tilting against squalls, there could scarcely be found a more unhomely and harassing place of residence. Many such aspire angrily after that Somewhere else of the imagination, where all troubles are supposed to end. They lean over the great bridge which joins the New Town with the Old—that windiest spot, or high altar, in this northern temple of the winds—and watch the trains smoking out from ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to believe that I aspire to see the propertied classes reduced to servitude under the working classes, that I would invert history and make the landed gentry and the manufacturers the servants of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... rooted conviction, even in many of those in whom its existence is least apparent, that honourable and affectionate remembrance after death with a full and certain hope that it will be ours is the highest prize to which the highest calling can aspire. Few pass through this world without feeling the vanity of all human ambitions; their faith may fail them here, but it will not fail them—not for a moment, never—if they possess it as regards posthumous respect and affection. The ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... If it is this principle, that has always prompted the princes and nobles of the earth, by every species of fraud and violence, to shake off all the limitations of their power; it is the same that has always stimulated the common people to aspire at independency, and to endeavour at confining the power of the great, within the limits of equity ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... institution, composed of pupils of moderate means, with high ideals and gentle manners, are found at Fisk. The choicest of the recently emancipated race are here seeking a training. As always and everywhere, none reach the highest ideal. Some are found who fail to aspire to it; a few are intractable, but to one who recalls the life of the race and the treatment it has received before and since it was freed, life at Fisk ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 01, January, 1900 • Various
... as much disliked as they think and hope they are. Even on the Continent, even in that strange tourist world where hostilities grow apace, where the courtesies of life are relaxed, and where every nationality presents its least lovable aspect, the English can never aspire to the prize of unpopularity. They are too silent, too clean, too handsome, too fond of fresh air, too schooled in the laws of justice which compel them to acknowledge—however reluctantly—the rights of other men. They are certainly uncivil, but that is a matter of no great moment. We do not ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... but little doth aspire To prophecy; but yet it reads On high, that soon his glorious deeds Full many Homers will require— Of which this age produces few. But, bidding mysteries adieu, I try my powers upon ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... we aspire, we resolve, we trust, When the morning calls us to life and light, But our hearts grow weary, and, ere the night, Our lives are trailing ...
— Graded Memory Selections • Various
... which rested on the back of the seat almost touched her shoulder. "Lady Margot is pleased to be friendly and gracious, but she does not belong to my world. She is a star far above the head of a poor struggling barrister, even if he were fool enough to aspire to her, which he certainly would not do so long as there are inhabitants of his own sphere a hundred times more ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Bettina brought me a band for my neck, and gave me the following letter: "Spurn me, but respect my honour and the shadow of peace to which I aspire. No one from this house must confess to Father Mancia; you alone can prevent the execution of that project, and I need not suggest the way to succeed. It will prove whether you have some ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... conceives, which is presented to you. Herein he is distinguished from his preceptor VELASQUEZ. That great master, by his courtly habits of intercourse, contracted a more proud and swelling character, to which the simple and chaste pencil of MURILLO never sought to aspire. A plain and pensive cast, sweetly attempered by humility and benevolence, marks his canvass; and on other occasions, where he is necessarily impassioned or inflamed, it is the zeal of devotion, the influx of pious inspiration, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the rest of the State. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man could pass through all the great dignities of the State with a very limited experience of military life. Cicero himself did military ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... could not be princess by wealth or standing. So she was mad to have learning whereon to pride herself. For she was different from other folk, and must not be scooped up among the common fry. Learning was the only distinction to which she thought to aspire. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... who enjoys a royal estate and yet seeks rescue, cannot dwell thus, this is no place for him; escape is born from quietness and rest; to be a king is to add distress and poison; to seek for rest and yet aspire to royal condition are but contradictions; royalty and rescue, motion and rest, like fire and water, having two principles, cannot be united. So one resolved to seek escape cannot abide possessed of kingly dignity! And if you say a man may be a king, and at the same time prepare deliverance for ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... the bystander sees more of the game than those who share too closely in its passions. And assuredly, if it were asked, what it is that we who write upon Indian news aspire to effect, I may reply frankly, that, if but by a single suggestion any one of us should add something to the illumination of the great sepoy conspiracy—whether as to its ultimate purpose, or as to its machinery, or as to its wailing hopes, or if but by the merest trifle ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... love which I bear you has deprived me of repose: do not treat me with cruel disdain. A liking for me would do you no dishonour, for, thank God! I may be proud of my descent. But if, despised by you, I cannot aspire to the highest marks of your affection, let me have a single kiss, and the ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... time you'll be a staid, middle-aged matron, and I shall be nice, old maid Aunt Anne, coming to visit you on vacations. You'll always keep a corner for me, won't you, Di darling? Not the spare room, of course—old maids can't aspire to spare rooms, and I shall be as 'umble as Uriah Heep, and quite content with a little over-the-porch or ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... about to cast aside all these things, to deceive and lie to these excellent people, and to plunge into an adventure, the end of which she could foresee? What was it, then, that had come over her these last few days, by what dreams was she pursued, how was it that her whole existence seemed only to aspire towards the one moment when she would again feel the arms of a man about her? She had but to think of it and she was seized with an indescribable sensation of horror, during which she seemed devoid of will, as if ...
— Bertha Garlan • Arthur Schnitzler
... been the best result for the state. But the accounts of both, though they are very different writers, agree in their scorn of the leaders of the White Guelfs. They were upstarts, purse-proud, vain, and coarse-minded; and they dared to aspire to an ambition which they were too dull and too cowardly to pursue, when the game was in their hands. They wished to rule; but when they might, they were afraid. The commons were on their side, the moderate men, the party of law, the lovers of republican government, and for the most part the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... had arranged it because she wished to introduce to Rasputin a certain Madame Yatchevski—the wife of an officer who was very rich—who saw that, by Rasputin's influence, she could aspire ...
— The Minister of Evil - The Secret History of Rasputin's Betrayal of Russia • William Le Queux
... seeks the way to win renown, Or flies with wings of high desert, Who seeks to wear the laurel crown, Or hath the mind that would aspire— Let him his native soil eschew, Let him go range and ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... from its gulf, And diving back, a living topaz each, With all this laughter on its bloomy shores, Are but a preface, shadowy of the truth They emblem: not that, in themselves, the things Are crude; but on thy part is the defect, For that thy views not yet aspire so high." Never did babe, that had outslept his wont, Rush, with such eager straining, to the milk, As I toward the water, bending me, To make the better mirrors of mine eyes In the refining wave; and, as the eaves Of mine eyelids did drink of it, forthwith Seem'd it unto me ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... entreat, aspire, He may despair, and she has never heed. She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need, Not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... home safe by thy quiet fire, And hear'st of others' harms, but fearest none: And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire, Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan. Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost inquire Of my restraint, why here I live alone, And pitiest this my miserable fall; For pity ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... us burns To see dark Ignorance aspire To move toward light a mind that yearns For knowledge that may lift it higher Upon the royal road of truth, While every word and act and thought Betrays an atmosphere so fraught With lack of common sense and lore, ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... the descendants of the same race and of one soul, the same sun shines upon us and we breathe the same air, so that our sentiments are also one, and we aspire to the independence and liberty of our country in order to secure its progress and place it on a level with other civilized nations; and with this assurance I have taken the liberty to address you this letter, begging of you to accept the commission which in the name of our government ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... distant deeps or skies Burnt the ardour of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire— What the hand ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... Humphrey: we both aspire high, for two young foresters, do we not? However, they say 'Every dog has his day,' and Cromwell and his Parliament may have theirs. King Charles may be on his throne again now, long before you ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters; and no one would think of interfering. (6. Mr. H. Sidgwick remarks, in an able discussion on this subject (the 'Academy,' June 15, 1872, p. 231), "a superior bee, we may feel sure, would aspire to a milder solution of the population question." Judging, however, from the habits of many or most savages, man solves the problem by female infanticide, polyandry and promiscuous intercourse; therefore it may well be doubted whether it would ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... heart on riches, and urges another suit upon me, to my misery. I cannot bear this, for to bear it is to be untrue to you. I would rather share your struggles than look on. I want no better home than you can give me. I know that you will aspire and labour with a higher courage if I am wholly yours, and let it be ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... time appeared, or to take the place of exhaustive histories, such as that of Professor Leonello Venturi on the Italian primitives. It should but serve to pave the way to deeper and more detailed reading. It does not aspire to give a complete and comprehensive list of the painters; some of the minor ones may not even be mentioned. The mere inclusion of names, dates, and facts would add unduly to the size of the book, and, when without real bearing on the course of Venetian art, ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... great means of enterprise; Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth, A carpenter thy father known, thyself Bred up in poverty and straits at home, Lost in a desert here and hunger-bit. Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire To greatness? whence authority deriv'st? What followers, what retinue canst thou gain, Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude, 420 Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? Money brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms. What raised ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... in lofty reflections about philosophy, history, or economics; we are not on the plane of theories, and we can remain on the level of observable facts. We have to question men who take a very active part in the real revolutionary movement amidst the proletariat, men who do not aspire to climb into the middle class and whose mind is not dominated by corporative prejudices. These men may be deceived about an infinite number of political, economical, or moral questions; but their testimony is decisive, sovereign, and irrefutable when it is ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... well to impress, upon the more thinking students at least, the idea that all they saw had not "happened so,'' without the earnest agency of human beings; but that it had been the result of the earnest life-work of men and women, and that no life-work to which a student might aspire could be more worthy. In carrying out this idea upon the "campus'' Goldwin Smith took the lead by erecting the stone seat which has now stood there for over thirty years. Other memorials followed, among them a drinking-fountain, the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... punishments is hung perpetually over his head. In return for all this his University takes a keen interest in him. She pats him on the back if he succeeds. Prizes and scholarships, and fine fat fellowships are thrown plentifully in his way if he will gird up his loins and aspire ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... century, from Flanders, was one of the most distinguished of the town. It had even counted among its illustrious members a Seville Veinticuatro, and no one who was unable to present proof of noble lineage could aspire to ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... difficulty. If he had not liked Claudius so much, he would have been angry at him for daring to propose to this beautiful young friend of his. But then Claudius was Claudius, and even the Duke saw something in him besides his wealth which gave him a right to aspire to the highest. ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... thunders nigh, And sends in pitchy whirlwinds to the sky Black clouds of smoke, which, still as they aspire, From their dark sides there bursts the glowing fire; At other times huge balls of fire are toss'd, That lick the stars, and in the smoke are lost: Sometimes the mount, with vast convulsions torn, Emits huge rocks, which instantly are borne With loud ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain." ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into the Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of the Barnacle family, already to aspire to ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... other. The Mikado and his ministers, naval and military officers and men, the whole of the civil officials and the police, wear European clothes, as well as a number of dissipated-looking young men who aspire to represent "young Japan." Carriages and houses in English style, with carpets, chairs, and tables, are becoming increasingly numerous, and the bad taste which regulates the purchase of foreign furnishings is as marked as the good taste which everywhere presides over the adornment ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... periury to make him know Hee is your Sonne, and sonnes a dutie owe. This sequestration will in time aspire Unto a flame shall set your Realme on fire; For[207] when a Subject hath the meanes of will, 'Tis not enough, to say he has no will; For will is alter'd by the place and time And hee that's once up knowes the way to clime. I speake perchance ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... field, life be still left within my body's sanctuary, I will return to seize you as my own, though hosts in armour try to stop my way. I will not live without you. I will not endure to see another man aspire to the hand which has been refused to me. Adieu, Agatha, adieu! I trust we shall meet no more; in thinking of me, at any rate, your memory shall not call me despicable," and he rushed out of the door and down stairs, without waiting to hear whether ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... was decorated with all the Royal Orders; was a duke and peer of the realm, and Governor of Bordeaux; and, in fine, every attainable dignity had been lavished upon him; while he yielded precedence only to royalty, and to the Duc de Montmorency, to whose office it was vain to aspire during his lifetime.[177] ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... wisdom from the changes that shift below. Looking upon the tribes of earth, I have seen how the multitude are swayed, and tracked the steps that lead weakness into power; and fain would I be the ruler of one who, if abased, shall aspire to rule." ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... regardless, and unprofitable sin of curiosity should be able to withhold me; whereby a man cuts himself off from all action, and becomes the most helpless, pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature in the world, the most unfit and unable to do that which all mortals most aspire to—either to be useful to his friends or to offend his enemies? Or, if it be to be thought a natural proneness, there is against that a much more potent inclination inbred, which about this time of a man's life solicits most—the desire of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Vendome, to-day our support. The princes, my sons, give promise of virtues as excellent, and will be worthy to aspire to destinies as noble. It is my desire and my duty to give no thought to my private griefs begotten of an ill-assorted marriage. May the King ever be adored by his people; may my children ever be beloved and cherished by the King; I am happy, and I ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... minute, and I will read you a little. We have got them running. St. Augustine in his 22d book says: "A woman ought to serve her husband as unto God, affirming that woman ought to be braced and bridled betimes, if she aspire to any dominion, alleging that dangerous and perilous it is to suffer her to precede, although it be in temporal and corporeal things. How can woman be in the image of God, seeing she is subject to man, and hath no authority to teach, neither ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... number, the better seems the chance; until, if we be acting in concert with a whole civilised nation, there are surely a majority of chances that we must be acting right. And again, how true it is that we can never behave as we wish in this tormented sphere, and can only aspire to different and more favourable circumstances, in order to stand out and be ourselves wholly and rightly! And yet once more, if in the hurry and pressure of affairs and passions you tend to nod and become ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... protested Yukiko, "do not, I entreat you, say such strange things to me! You well know that I am of poor and mean condition:—how could I ever dare to aspire to become the ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... these superficial students aspire to become opera singers, after a couple of seasons' study. Of course they all cast eyes at the Metropolitan, as the end ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... heir to a great English nobleman might aspire to, the son of a poor country clergyman could never hope to attain. By a strange vicissitude of fortune he now found himself in the same position as that in which Flamin had been when they met on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... the nature of the spiritual part of mankind to shrink from the earth, to aspire to something higher; a bird soaring in the blue above us has something of the ethereal; we give wings to our angels. On the other hand, a serpent impresses us as something sinister. Trees, with their strange fight against all the laws of gravity, striving ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte
... who sincerely know wherein they lack, can learn, can be taught. As she had given these matters of civilization intelligent thought she knew where to begin—at the humble, material foundation, despised and neglected by those who talk most loudly about civilization, art, culture, and so on. They aspire to the clouds and the stars at once—and arrive nowhere except in talk and pretense and flaunting of ill-fitting borrowed plumage. They flap their gaudy artificial wings; there is motion, but no ascent. Susan ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... prevalent among the French. There is a great difference between gathering flowers at the foot of Parnassus and ascending the arduous heights of the mountain. The palms and laurels grow there, and if any of your countrymen aspire to gain them, they must no longer enervate all the vigour of their minds by this habit of trifling. I would have them be perpetual competitors with the English in manly wit and substantial learning. But let the competition be friendly. ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... one of those honest visionaries sometimes met in Ireland, said:—"For my own part, I confess that I aspire to complete independence. Then, and not till then, would the two countries be friendly. We in Ulster are ten times more patriotic than Irishmen elsewhere, for it is in Ulster that we have been most deeply wronged. ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke, this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile! How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics! In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office than one would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius were diverted from office-getting to house-building, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The graces taught in the ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... every citizen of the land is before the law the equal of every other. It provides for all of them trial by jury, free speech, free press, entire protection for life and liberty and property. It goes further. It secures to every citizen the right of suffrage, the right to hold office, the right to aspire to every office or agency by which the government is carried on. Every man called upon to do military duty, every man required to take up arms in its defense, is by its provisions entitled to vote, and a competent aspirant for every ...
— The Life, Public Services and Select Speeches of Rutherford B. Hayes • James Quay Howard
... And crowd with sudden wealth the rising dome; The price of boroughs and of souls restore; And raise his treasures higher than before. Now bless'd with all the baubles of the great, The polish'd marble and the shining plate, [gg]Orgilio sees the golden pile aspire, And hopes from angry heav'n another fire. [hh]Could'st thou resign the park and play, content, For the fair banks of Severn or of Trent; There might'st thou find some elegant retreat, Some hireling senator's deserted seat; And stretch thy prospects o'er the smiling land, For less than rent the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... (cry'd Friendly.) How! how! presumptious Youth! How are thy Eyes and Thoughts exalted? ha! To Bliss your Majesty must never hope for, (reply'd Goodland.) How now! thou Creature of the basest Mold! Not hope for what thou dost aspire to! Mock-King; thou canst not, dar'st not, shalt not hope it: (return'd Valentine in a heat.) Hold, Val, (cry'd Sir Philip) you grow warm, forget your Duty to their Majesties, and abuse your Friends, by making us suspected. Good-night, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... were bidding the stars good-bye; but she was renewing a promise. Though their challenge is universal and eternal, the stars get no answer but that,—the brief light flashed back to them from the eyes of the young who unaccountably aspire. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... all the appointments which he had held in the preceding reign, and on several occasions visited him at Nonsuch, his residence at Cheam in Surrey. These marks of kindness led him, it is said, to aspire to a union with his royal mistress; but being disappointed in gaining her hand, and 'being miscontented with sundry things,' in 1564 he resigned his post of Lord Steward 'with sundry Speeches of Offence,'[13] which so displeased Elizabeth that she ordered him to confine himself to his house. He afterwards ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... to the allure of Valencia Van Tyle, admitting a finish of beauty to which mere youth could not aspire, all that was idealistic in him went out to the younger cousin whose admiration and shy swift friendship he was losing. His vanity refused to accept this at first. She was a little piqued at him because of the growing intimacy with Valencia. That was all. Why, it had been only a month or two ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... behind. The upper boughs have reached at once the light and their natural term of years. They are content to live, and little more. The central trunk no longer sends up each year a fresh perpendicular shoot to aspire above the rest, but, as weary of struggling ambition as they are, is content to become more and more their equal as the years pass by. And this is a law of social forest trees, which you must bear in mind whenever I speak of the influence ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... conventual church Their vigils kept: where tapers day and night On the dim altar burned continually. In token that the House was ever more Watching to God. Religious men were they; Nor would their reason, tutored to aspire Above this transitory world, allow That there should pass a moment of the year When in their ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen
... on like this it'll be a real book after all. Calgary is the big cow-town of the West, just beginning to aspire to higher—or lower (there's a real question there)—civilization, and mixing schaps and silks on its streets in a strange struggle between the past and the future. But my stay there was short, as I was able to catch my branch train with little delay, and ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... General, I am thriving in a modest way. I don't aspire to any such profits as you seem to win so easily, so I have no fault ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... shall live no more? Where is the giant shot that kills Wordsworth walking the old green hills? Trample the red rose on the ground,— Keats is Beauty while earth spins round! Bind her, grind her, burn her with fire, Cast her ashes into the sea,— She shall escape, she shall aspire, She shall arise to make men free: She shall arise in a sacred scorn, Lighting the lives that are yet unborn; Spirit supernal, Splendour ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... resemble the rats which wear their teeth away in gnawing the rotten panel; they close up the hole as soon as they smell the nuts and the lard locked up in the royal cupboard. The woman is the Whig of our government. Occupying the situation in which we have left her she might naturally aspire to the conquest of more than one privilege. Shut your eyes to the intrigues, allow her to waste her strength in mounting half the steps of your throne; and when she is on the point of touching your ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... like Mr. Sheridan, aim only to be men of wit, lie a bed; while they who, like Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Burke, and a very few others, aspire to be men of wisdom, rise with the lark. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... and let his thick and curly hair grow long. After he had acquitted himself gallantly in this battle of Salamis, he obtained great repute among the Athenians, and was regarded with affection, as well as admiration. He had many who followed after him, and bade him aspire to actions not less famous than his father's battle of Marathon. And when he came forward in political life, the people welcomed him gladly, being now weary of Themistocles; in opposition to whom, and because of the frankness and easiness of his temper, which ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... Hume, Kant was not concerned to challenge his opponent's definition of man's reasoning power. His sole object was to show that, if one accepted this definition, one must not go as far as Hume in the application of this power. All that Kant could aspire to do was to protect the ethical from attack by the intellectual part of man, and to do this by proving that the former belongs to a world into which the latter has no access. For with his will man belongs to a world of purposeful doing, whereas ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... and for himself, were not altogether indispensable qualifications, even under a Venetian constitution, in an individual who aspired to a post so eminent and responsible. Satisfied with the stars and mitres and official seals, which were periodically apportioned to them, the Marney family did not aspire to the somewhat graceless office of being their distributor. What they aimed at was promotion in their order; and promotion to the highest class. They observed that more than one of the other great "civil and religious liberty" families,—the families who in one century plundered the ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... describe life as something outside of herself, nor does she regard human sorrows and sufferings and labors merely as materials for the artist's use; but she lives in and with all that men do and suffer and aspire to. Hers is not the manner of Homer and Scott, who hide their personality behind the wonderful distinctness of their personalities, making the reader forget the author in the strength and power of the characters described. It is not that of Shakspere, of whom ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... improvement on any of the soggy-headed things spawned by the House of Hanover. I do not apologize for nor condone the sexual frailties of distinguished females; the noblest career to which any woman can aspire is that of honest wifehood, and if she attains to that she is, though of mediocre mind, infinitely superior to the ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... of Countess Thirza Eulenfurst. Hitherto he had resolutely put that from him. It was not for him, a soldier of fortune, without a penny beyond his pay, to aspire to the hand of a rich heiress. It was true that many Scottish adventurers in foreign services had so married, but this had seemed a thing altogether beyond him. He had rendered a service to her father, and they had, in consequence, been most kind to ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... had been realized. She was to go to the land of the red-headed stranger where she would be admired and courted, and where, in time, she might aspire to the ultimate honor of having her picture in ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... the powerful influence of religion, and to obtain from the Peninsula fresh supplies of missionaries. As in their nature the latter are essentially different from the other public functionaries, it is well known they neither seek nor aspire to any remuneration for their labors, their only hope being to obtain, in the opinion of the community at large, that degree of respect to which they justly consider themselves entitled. Let, therefore, their pre-eminences be retained to them: let ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... which you should find extremely sharp or flat; you could detect and improve a unison that might be badly out, and you might produce an entire scale in which none of the chords would be unbearably rasping. But this is not enough. You should aspire to perfection, and not stop short ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... attracted as much custom to good Mr. Pfaff's beer-saloon as did his fresh, cool lager; and that young men, and, for the matter of that, men not so young, stole in there to listen to their contests of wit, and to wish and yearn and aspire to be of their goodly company. For the old gentleman little dreamed, as he went on his course up Broadway, that he had seen the first Bohemians of New York, and that these young men would be written about and talked about and versified about for generations to come. Unconscious ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... Conkling and all his ways. Conkling once said to him: 'If you will join us and act with us, there is nothing in the gift of the State of New York to which you may not reasonably aspire.' To which Wheeler replied: 'Mr. Conkling, there is nothing in the gift of the State which will compensate me for the forfeiture of my own self-respect.'"—Hoar, Autobiography, Vol. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... exhorted me to set about writing a History of Ireland, and archly remarked, there had been some good Irish writers, and that one Irishman might at least aspire to be equal to another. He had great compassion for the miseries and distresses of the Irish nation, particularly the Papists; and severely reprobated the barbarous debilitating policy of the British government, which, he said, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... people. They cannot unite him to history, or reconcile him with themselves. As they come to revere their intuitions and aspire to live holily, their own piety explains every fact, ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... promising exterior, if not absolutely silly, I was a lad of very little sense, and without ideas of learning; in fine, very ignorant in all respects, and if I could arrive at being curate of some village, it was the utmost honor I ought ever to aspire to. Such was the account he gave of me to Madam de Warrens. This was not the first time such an opinion had been formed of me, neither was it the last; the judgment of M. Masseron having ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... with those who reject all creeds, equally with those whose creeds are the longest and the oldest. In our day, it must have been generally noticed, that the wonders of what imagines itself to be Spiritualism are rather more accredited by persons who aspire to the character of rationalists than by those who hold on tenaciously to the old ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... keys and our cabins are adjoining. I seized an opportune moment, slipped in, and took a wax impression of what I wanted. Then with an old key and a file—Monsieur is a great detective, perhaps, but I, too," with Gaston boastfulness, "can aspire to a ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... as humanity. As all the stars lie in the firmament, so all creatures rest in the heaven of His love. Mankind has many common characteristics. We all suffer, we all sin, we all hunger, we all aspire, hope, and die; and, blessed be God! we all occupy precisely the same relation to the divine love which lies in Jesus Christ. There are no step-children in God's great family, and none of them receives a more grudging or ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... the suff'ring soul aspire A higher bliss to prove; To wake the pure, refin'd desire, ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams
... wide, the kindling bosom swells, As love inspires, and truth its wonders tells, The soul enraptured tunes the sacred lyre, And bids a worm of earth to heaven aspire, 'Mid solar systems numberless, to soar, The death of love ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly. "As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for GOD'S sake hear ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... about it, I'll see about it," exclaimed the colonel, now more than ever annoyed. "It is impossible that a man of such low extraction should aspire to the hand of my daughter. ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston
... forward with joy to the time when they should be numbered among those brave soldiers, whose arms had maintained for a long series of years the supremacy of the crescent. There was no rank, no dignity in the Turkish army to which a Janissary could not aspire—a strong incentive to the display of bravery. Such was the constitution of the army when it was the most powerful in Europe: then it gained its victories, not by force of numbers, but by superior ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... nature loves not only the beautiful things he sees, but he loves what they suggest, what they remind him of, what they bid him aspire to. Like Wordsworth, he "looks on the hills with tenderness, and makes deep friendship with the streams and groves." He notes what he divines by observation. And what an observer he is! He discovers that the bobolink goes south in the night. He scraped an acquaintance ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... namely, by the report of his distinguished services in the war, which, in the assembly of the people, was communicated by one person to another. [339] Ad id locorum, 'until then,' 'until that time,' as in chap. 72: post id locorum. See Zumpt, S 434. Marius did not venture to aspire to the consulship; for appetere is not the same as petere, the latter denoting the actual suit or canvass. His ambition had not yet been directed to that highest of all offices, until religious superstition suggested it to him, ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... affected unconcern; "is not that the name of your former protege, the love-stricken swain who ventured to aspire to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... the great aspire high. (He walks about and speaks to some one not visible.) Ancient Shakalya, how is Marichi's holy son occupied? (He listens.) What do you say? That he is explaining to Aditi, in answer to her question, the duties of a faithful wife? My matter must await ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... won't spoil the meat by cutting myself the fat—no! I am a digger, but not only a digger, I aspire to the honor of being a captain of diggers; my claim lies ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... not a regiment of the Paris garrison but could turn out a score of prevots to button me six times for my once. I could ride, which qualified me for a postilion, and had sufficient knowledge of billiards to aspire to the honourable post of a marker; but even to such offices—could I have stooped to compete for them—I should have been held ineligible without certificates of character. And to whom was I to apply for these? To my gay acquaintances of the Cafe de Paris? To ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... said Capitana Maria gravely, "if I were rich like you I would let my sons travel; they are young and will some day be men. I have only a little while to live, we should see one another in the other life, so sons should aspire to be more than their fathers, but at our sides we only teach them ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... And I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry about it, either. Take time to look about you and make your name express something that you like to do better than anything else, or something that you earnestly aspire to do or be. Then choose your symbol in keeping ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... writing of philosophical treatises. It had become an undisguised conflict with obscurantism, ignorance, a time-worn routine, and all that barred the way to culture. Since the government permitted the Jews to enter the social life of the country, and seeing that they might in the future aspire to a better lot, the Haskalah should and would work to prepare them for it and make them worthy ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... O Love, which reachest but to dust, And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things! Grow rich in that which never taketh rust: Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings. Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be; Which breaks the clouds and opens forth the light That doth both ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... addition to the eighty prescribed by the constitution of 1799. Thus, by direct or indirect means, the Senate soon became a strict Napoleonic preserve, to which only the most devoted adherents could aspire. And yet, such is the vanity of human efforts, it was this very body which twelve years later ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... with his talk; for which reason he was beloved not only by all those who knew him, but also by many Italian princes and other lords. While working as a goldsmith, then, he gave attention to design, in which he took so much pleasure, that his mind began to aspire to higher things, and he made very great progress therein, as may be seen from many works in silver that he executed in his native city of Bologna, and particularly from certain most excellent works in niello. In this manner of work ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... such few friends as my life has hitherto won to itself, to consider well the direct purport of this letter. If you, born in a grade so much higher than mine, feel that it is unwarrantable insolence in me to aspire to the hand of my patron's grandchild, say so plainly; and I remain not less grateful for your friendship than I was to your goodness when dining for the first time at your father's palace. Shy and sensitive ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... presently be earning a princely salary as he acted amid these beautiful objects, perhaps attending a reception in a Fifth Avenue mansion where the father of a beautiful New York society girl would tell him that he must first make good before he could aspire to her hand. And he would make good—out there in the great open spaces, where the girl would come to him after many adventures and where they would settle to an untroubled future in ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... allowed three times as much, had been sumptuously lodged in the palace, had dined on plate and had been clothed in silk. He clamoured for an increase of his stipend. Nay, he was even impudent enough to aspire to ecclesiastical preferment, and thought it hard that, while so many mitres were distributed, he could not get a deanery, a prebend, or even a living. He missed no opportunity of urging his pretensions. He haunted the public offices ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... aching heart to death aspire, When all must die? Nay, death beyond belief Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief, Since in my sum of woes ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... and compiling this book, to emphasize not only actual deeds and historical facts, but to aspire to an even higher goal—to conjure to life for a few brief moments the "Souls" of my subjects, stark in all their deathless beauty. What task could be nobler than to delve in these vivid famous lives and bring to light, perhaps, some hitherto undiscovered motive—some ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... circumstance resided all her insuperable dissociation from these people of light-hearted lives; that this was why she was and forever must remain, however long and intimate her life among them, an outsider; because what she needed and demanded, the blind and inarticulate impulse which had made her aspire to their society, was not the need of a wide social life, but the need of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... Englishman, had, like me, indulged in dreams of going back to England to fill some great railway post, but he had reached his sixties and his dreams were over. Often, when we talked familiarly together, he would say: "Joseph, if you aspire to be a general manager in England you ought never to have come to Ireland. They don't think much on the other side of Irish railways or Irish railway men." This, I daresay, was true, though he, well known, liked and admired as he was, ought to have been considered an exception, and why no British ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... suppressed many details to which I may later return if I learn that they afford pleasure to Your Holiness, charged with the weight of religious questions and sitting at the summit of the honours to which men may aspire. It is in no sense for my personal pleasure that I have collected these facts, for only the desire to please Your Beatitude has induced ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... hollow voice which had become natural to him since his illness began; "my love for you proved too strong to be restrained just now: but believe me, I had fully made up my mind never to open my lips to you on the subject; for what right have I, a helpless, and, I fear, hopeless, invalid, to dare to aspire—" ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne |
