"Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I shall advise you in a few words: aspire only to those virtues that are PECULIAR TO YOUR SEX; follow your natural modesty, and think it your greatest commendation not to be talked of one way ...
— Essays on Various Subjects - Principally Designed for Young Ladies • Hannah More
... which they were conferred. It is from Stephen's action that we may date the entry of this title into English history as a mark of rank in the baronage, more and more freely bestowed, a title of honour to which a family of great possessions or influence might confidently aspire. But it must be remembered that the earldoms thus created are quite different from those of the Anglo-Saxon state or from the countships of France. They carried with them increase of social consideration and rank, usually some increase of wealth in grants ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... probability, if you love dancing and aspire to make it a career, you possess an innate sense of rhythm. You feel the swing of music and love to move your body to the strains of a lilting melody. The first great possessions of the successful stage dancer are a love of ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... who aspire to high positions, and are anxious to rise above their fellows, be sure of this, that those who have the apportioning of important and lucrative places of trust, judge in the main by Christ's rule, "He that is faithful in that which is least ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... Behaviour, which rendred it agreeable to every Body. The grandeur of her Mien was not stiff, but unstudied and unforced, mixed with a simplicity; free, yet not loose nor affected. If the former seem'd to condescend, the latter seem'd to aspire; and both to unite in the centre of Perfection. Every turn she gave in dancing snatcht Aurelian into a Rapture, and he had like to have been out two or three times with following his Eyes, which she led about as Slaves ...
— Incognita - or, Love & Duty Reconcil'd. A Novel • William Congreve
... higher, Josephine! From the Eternal Hills hast thou not seen How I do strive for heights? but lacking wings, I cannot grasp at once those better things To which I in my inmost soul aspire. Lean ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... with which woman has been accustomed to be treated, and which have made her either the slave, the toy, or the ridicule of man; and it is getting to see that she is at least of as much relative importance as man; that without her he will in vain aspire to rise; that, by a law as infallible as that which moves and regulates the spheres, his condition is determined by hers; that wherever she has been a slave, he has been a tyrant, and that all oppression and injustice practised upon her has ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... doth aspire to be god of Desire, Swears he "gives lawes; That where his arrows hit, somejoy, some sorrow it: ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... vain imaginings, If, urged by greed profane, He grasps at ill-got gain, And lays an impious hand on holiest things. Who when such deeds are done Can hope heaven's bolts to shun? If sin like this to honor can aspire, Why dance I still and ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles
... machine invariably starts the cry - "He is a candidate for the United States Senate." The open candidacy - and liberal advertising - of a machine man for the Federal Senatorship causes no adverse comment. For an anti-machine man to so aspire - or the suspicion in machine breasts that he so aspires - is heralded as evidence of his ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... a salutary effect; but the truth is, of all the passions incident to human nature, vanity is that which most effectually perverts the faculties of the understanding; nay, it sometimes becomes so incredibly depraved, as to aspire at infamy, and find pleasure in bearing the stigmas ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... published the "Bride of Abydos," Moore remarked that there existed some connection in that poem with an incident he had to introduce in his own poem of "Lalla Rookh." He wrote thereupon to Byron to say that he would stop his own work, because to aspire after him to describe the energy of passion would be ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... "But all beings aspire to rise in the scale of existence higher than they are. It was therefore the wish of my father, who is a powerful water-prince in the Mediterranean Sea, that his only daughter should become possessed of a soul, although she should have to endure many of the ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... 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, Orgilio sees the golden pile aspire, And hopes ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... this trap for me,' Derrick cried bitterly. 'You have set evil reports afloat against me, lest I stand in your light with the Mayor's daughter. What are you that you should dare to raise your eyes to her! A mere vagrant and masterless man, coming none know whence. Why should you aspire to pluck the flower which has grown up amongst us? What had you to do with her or with ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... power over her, that she had agreed to conceal their attachment from her father; as Ramsay wished first, he asserted, to be possessed of a certain property which he daily expected would fall to him, and, until that, he did not think that he had any right to aspire to the hand ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... said he quickly, "I do not aspire to that; I believe in Faust's verse: 'Ich ziehe... meine Schuler an der Nase herum—Und sehe dass wir nichts wissen konnen;' and I also bilde mir nicht ein, Ich konnte was lehren.' I wonder at and envy ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... seizure of occasion. The First Consul is a madman! He has sold to us an Empire! Empire! Emperor—Emperor of the West! The sound is stately. You laugh. We are citizens of a republic. Well! I am content. I aspire no higher. I am not Buonaparte. Your lilies are budding beneath the windows; the sweet williams are all in bloom. I have little news for you of town or country—Mrs. Randolph, doubtless, sends you all. Work goes on upon the church. For me, I worship ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... voices through all Nature. It extends to every kind of social intercourse. It engenders cheerful goodwill and loving sincerity. By its help we make others happy, and ourselves blest. We elevate our being and ennoble our lot. We rise above the grovelling creatures of earth, and aspire to the Infinite. And thus we link time to eternity; where the true Art of Living has ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... December. You know what high esteem I profess for Joachim's talent, and when you have heard him I am certain you will find that my praises of him latterly are by no means exaggerated. He is an artist out of the common, and one who may legitimately aspire ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... intertwisting reflections that in an access of bodily fever she stood up and moved before the glass, to behold the image of the woman who could be the victim of these childish emotions: and no wonderful contrast struck her eyes; she appeared to herself as poor and small as they. How could she aspire to a man like Nevil Beauchamp? If he had made her happy by wooing her she would not have adored him as she did now. He likes my hair, she said, smoothing it out, and then pressing her temples, like one insane. Two minutes afterward she was telling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pursuit of science is regarded as a profession, and where those who are successful in its cultivation are not shut out from almost every object of honourable ambition to which their fellow countrymen may aspire. Having, however, already expressed some opinion upon these subjects in another publication,(1*) I shall here content myself with referring ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... which slipped like a ray of light between his heavy half-closed eyelids. He perceived, in this unexpected incident, a chance of interrogating the heart of his sovereign. Dumay thought for a moment that the clerk dared to aspire to Modeste, and he exchanged a rapid glance with the others, who understood him, and began to eye the little man with a species of terror mingled ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... 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 ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... triumph, my felicity, would be enhanced." These thoughts were mere phantoms of the brain, and never, by system, put into action; but, repeatedly indulged, they were practised by casual occurrences; and the dear-bought experiment of being loved in spite of her faults, (a glory proud women ever aspire to) was, at present, the ambition of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... crisis, to see their folly, before they feel the misery of civil strife; and inspire a returning veneration for that Union, which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of obtaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the thicket my heart's bird! Slight and small the lovely cry Came trickling down, but no one heard. Parrot and cuckoo, crow, magpie Jarred horrid notes and the jangling jay Ripped the fine threads of song away, For why should peeping chick aspire To challenge ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... civilizer, the softener, the purifier, the perpetual witness to fierce and coarse men, that there were nobler aims in life than pleasure, and power, and the gratification of revenge; that not self-assertion, but self-sacrifice was the Divine ideal, toward which all must aspire. These old legends are immortal; for they speak of facts and laws which will endure as long as there are women upon earth. Through the woman, the civilizer and the Christianizer must reach the man. Through the wife, ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the old proverb, 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 any one ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... honorable extraction, but poor, finds himself reduced to the position of steward or director in the house of Araminte, a rich young widow, to whose hand he is induced to aspire by Dubois, his former servant, now in her employ, who, by his profound knowledge of the feminine heart, aided by his master's comeliness, succeeds in overcoming the prejudice of social standing in the mind of Araminte, and triumphantly marries her to ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux
... out of sheer, weak kindness of heart! But she's far too thickly gilded an heiress for me to aspire to. A few thousands a year is my most ambitious figure for a wife. Look at the men collecting around her and the wonderful lady you call Cleopatra. Why Cleopatra? Did ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... what I have told; and because they were the Princes faults, they also have suffered the punishment. I will fuller shew the infelicity of these armes. The mercenary Captains are either very able men, or not: if they be, thou canst not repose any trust in them: for they will alwaies aspire unto their own proper advancements, either by suppressing of thee that art their Lord, or by suppressing of some one else quite out of thy purpose: but if the Captain be not valorous, he ordinarily ruines thee: and in case it be answered, that whoever shall have his armes in his hands, whether ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... stands it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar and near, Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the seaboard here; Downs that swerve and aspire, in curve and change of heights that the dawn ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... heard that a man had dared to aspire to be as the Gods. Time after time he had fought the Titans, who were his peers, and kept them out of his kingdom; yet he feared a man whose power was that ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... only the institutors or restorers of them, but thought it glorious to share in the exercise of them, and meritorious to succeed therein. These subduers of monsters, and of the common enemies of mankind, thought it no disgrace to them, to aspire to the victories in these combats; nor that the new wreaths with which their brows were encircled in the solemnization of these games, detracted from the lustre of those they had before acquired. Hence the most famous poets made these combats ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... the conquering foe, And in calm torpor watch'd each new o'erthrow! Yon troop of peasants, ignorantly gay, Who waste in careless sports the passing day, Soon shall behold the waving sheets of fire, Sent from their peaceful domes, to heaven aspire. Each year, each month, new towns with ruin smoke, And province after province feels the yoke. Already on our conquer'd castle's height The Danish watchfires redden all the night, Soon, soon, their inroads will our fate decide— Haste, let us spread th' eventful tidings wide, Arm every ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... who, 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. Horatio ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... not ambitious? Caesar was not more ambitious than Cicero. It was but in another way. All greatness is born of ambition. Let the ambition be a noble one, and who shall blame it? I confess I did once aspire to be Queen not only of Palmyra, but of the East. That I am. I now aspire to remain so. Is it not an honorable ambition? Does it not become a descendant of the Ptolemys and of Cleopatra? I am applauded by you all for what I have already done. You would not it should ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... greatest variety of characters. One thing only she demanded of all her friends,—that they should have some "extraordinary generous seeking,"[C] that they should not be satisfied with the common routine of life,—that they should aspire to something higher, better, holier, than they had now attained. Where this element of aspiration existed, she demanded no originality of intellect, no greatness of soul. If these were found, well; but she could love, tenderly and truly, where they were not. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts, indeed, stony and beastly people, so among the Romans were Livius Andronicus, and Ennius; so in the Italian language, the first that made it to aspire to be a treasure-house of science, were the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower and Chaucer; after whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent foregoing, others have followed to beautify our mother tongue, as well in ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... girl nearly so much, for she knew no matter how sweet and lovely and good a cat might be, it could only aspire to that honor in catland. She did so hate to hear Mr. Clay called old and poor when he was neither. To her he was brave Harry of the West, the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... who would traverse it. To be a desultory reader, in the sense defined by Lord Iddesleigh, a man must first have been a student; and not to every student is given the temperament, capacity, and opportunity, to become a desultory reader—still less can every student aspire to that refined literary taste, which Mr. Harrison possesses in so large a measure, and which, in its characteristics, ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... a sad one ever, Yet often with a smile I've heard it told! Oh, there are records of the heart which never Are to the scrutinizing gaze unrolled! My eyes to thine may scarce again aspire— Still in thy memory, dearest let me dwell, And hush, with this hope, the magnetic wire, Wild with ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... that he had been very unwise—that he had no right to aspire to the hand of the beautiful heiress, for he could offer her nothing but his true heart, and this, he well knew, would be scorned by ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... employing symbolical forms borrowed principally from the mason's trade and from architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving morally to ennoble themselves and others, and thereby to bring about a universal league of mankind, which they aspire to exhibit even now on a small ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... heard, if after Saumur's 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 Agatha intended making any answer to this poetical ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... mixture of admiration, fear, and confidence, with which his genius inspired many influential persons, Rodin now learned from members of the pontifical government, that, in case of a possible and probable occurrence, he might, within a given time, aspire, with a good chance of success, to a position which has too often excited the fear, the hate, or the envy of many sovereigns, and which has in turn, been occupied by great, good men, by abominable scoundrels, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... civilization is the correct thing for mortals to aspire to. As a boy, while I hated it with a bitter hatred, I accepted it as inevitable because my elders approved it and because it seemed indissolubly linked to the school, the church and the things of good repute. ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one side, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally well the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists and the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious freedom, aspire. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... no power in the gloom of hell To quench those spirits' fire; There is no power in the bliss of heaven To bid them not aspire; But somewhere in the eternal plan That strength, that life survive, And like the files on Lookout's crest, Above death's clouds ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay
... culture the colored women and girls reach, the more sensitive they become, and the more keenly the effects of ostracism are felt. In wages it does not matter how capable she may be, she must not aspire. I have asked several persons, "What is the greatest need of the colored woman and girl?" and many have replied, "To be good servants." Assuming that this is her highest need, can good servants be ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 1, January, 1889 • Various
... grown tired of rapture and love's desire; Love is a flaming heart, and its flames aspire Till they cloud the soul in the smoke of a ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... thus when Freedom's ills I state, I mean to flatter kings, or court the great; Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, Far from my bosom drive the low desire; And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel 365 The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel; Thou transitory flower, alike undone By proud contempt, or favour's fostering sun, Still may thy blooms the changeful ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... important subjects I acquire no fixed opinion. I think, and think, and go on thinking, and yet my thoughts are running ever in different directions. I hardly know whether or no we do lean more confidently than our fathers did on those high hopes to which we profess to aspire." ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... yield its secret and its fire. Each of you, O my Brothers, can make it light his own hut, warm his own heart, guide his own soul. Never before in the history of man did it seem as necessary as it does now that each individual should think for himself, will for himself, and aspire incessantly for the realisation of his ideals and dreams. Yes, we are to-day at a terrible and glorious turning point, and it depends upon us whether that one star in the vague and dusky sky of modern life, shall be the harbinger of ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... Portuguese, signifying to "command," to Chinese official functionaries, of which there are some nine orders, distinguished by the buttons on their caps, and they are appointed chiefly for their possession of the requisite qualifications for the office they aspire to. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry Topping stands out in ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... thinke y^t the hand of God was justly against him, both y^e first and 2. time of his returne; in regard he, whom you and we so confidently trusted, but only to use his name for y^e company, should aspire to be lord over us all, and so make you & us tenants at his will and pleasure, our assurance or patente being quite voyd & disanuled by his means. I desire to judg charitably of him. But his unwillingnes to part with his royall Lordship, ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... fresh, and free for such indulgences. Early youth—when its passions are developing, when the soul's bubbling springs are opening fresh and warm, when young hopes put out, to be blighted with a shade, young loves come to be disappointed with a frown, young desires aspire to be saddened with the first failure—is the season when the seeds of disquiet and unhappiness are sown in the soul. And in the most gifted and sensitive souls these seeds are oftenest sown. Those ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... other prophecies of our national decadence. The "Oxford English Dictionary" has not yet unfolded the last of its coils, which yet are ample enough to enfold us in seven words for every three an active man can grapple with. Yet the warning has point, and a particular point, for those who aspire to write poetry: as Francis Thompson has noted ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... authorities. Other rebels rose, won victories, and sank again; but Li held his own and steadily grew stronger, until, in 1640, he was at the head of an army of nearly half a million of men and in a position to aspire to the throne of Peking itself. Town after town fell into his hands, frightful outrages being perpetrated in each, for Li was a brigand in grain and merciless at heart. The efforts of the emperor to overthrow him proved ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... your excellency," replied Gregory, "there are many men who, owing to the kindness shown them by others, forget their position and aspire to a more exalted one; having already been placed so ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lived, in a sequestered part of the county of Devonshire, one Mr Godfrey Nickleby: a worthy gentleman, who, taking it into his head rather late in life that he must get married, and not being young enough or rich enough to aspire to the hand of a lady of fortune, had wedded an old flame out of mere attachment, who in her turn had taken him for the same reason. Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for money, sometimes sit down to ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... will doubtless help on the growth of its principles. Pilgrims from everywhere will go there in search of truth, and some may be satisfied and some will not. Christian Science cannot absorb the world's thought. It may get the share of attention it deserves, but it can only aspire to take its place alongside other great demonstrations of religious belief which have done something good for ...
— Pulpit and Press (6th Edition) • Mary Baker Eddy
... dearest, gentlest, most honored of 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 and young, I felt that his grand guests wondered why I was invited to the same ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... king; "but you know the comte has the weakness to aspire to become a member of the Academy, so that, with this object in view, he has learnt all sorts of things of which very happily you are ignorant; and it might possibly happen that the language of the Nymph of the Waters might be among the number of ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... economic—practically they're all in the same boat—let alone the inevitable breakdown or petering out of each, necessarily produces a fresh crop of such waste and refuse material. And in that a man like myself, who does not aspire to cure or to construct, but merely to alleviate and to pick up ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... insult. Her conduct was open, her mind superior to deceit; and to be ignorant of this would be to shew myself unworthy of her. The lover should disdain to excite his mistress to any action which he would disapprove in a wife; and this was a rule not to be infringed, by him who should aspire to the noble-minded Olivia. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... between them a rivalry such as is inevitable between a State that has long held something like the first place in the world and a State that feels entitled in virtue of the number of its people, their character and training, their work and their corporate organisation, to aspire to the first place. The German nation by the mere fact of its growth challenges England for the primacy. It could not be otherwise. But the challenge is no wrong done to England, and the idea that it ought to be resented is ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... mine. A love that is shared with even such men as your excellent father, and your worthy cousin, will not make me happy. But, why should I, unowned, bearing a name to which I have no legal title, and virtually without relatives, aspire to one like you!" ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... combined conscientious workmanship, a pure style of finest quality, and archaeology, for all I know to the contrary, worthy of Becker or Boni. Sir Walter himself could never in reason have dared to aspire to such a fortunate conjuncture of talent, grace, and historic accuracy. He possessed only that profound knowledge of human nature, that moulding humour and quick sense of dialogue, that live, human, and local interest in ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... called the Zombe, who ruled with absolute authority during the term of his life. The right of candidacy was restricted to a group recognized as composing the bravest men of the community. Any man in the state might aspire to this dignity, provided he had Negro blood in his veins. There were other officials, both of a military and of a civil character. In the interests of good order, the Zombes made laws imposing ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... there are forty-seven juges de paix, twenty of whom, as I learn from an enquiry, were mayors at the time of their appointment. It is not to be wondered at that the number of provincial magnates who aspire to the post is on the increase, for it seems to be generally recognised in this department that elective office irrespective of all professional aptitude is the normal means of access to a paid appointment, more especially to that of juge de paix. Once they are appointed, ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... roommate, John Lothrop Motley. He studied law with Charles Sumner, in the office of Judge Story, a legal star of the first magnitude. He was counted one of the handsomest youths in Boston. There was nothing too bright or too hard for Wendell Phillips to aspire to, or hope for. At the critical moment, when he had to decide upon his future career, ambition sang to him, as to every noble youth. George William Curtis represents Phillips as sometimes forecasting the future, as he saw himself "succeeding Ames, and Otis and Webster, rising from the bar to the ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... George upon a thousand points; was always for the advice that seemed palatable to the Prince, no matter if it was good or bad; and seems upon the whole (like the gambler he was all through life) to have had less regard to the chances of the campaign than to the greatness of favour he might aspire to, if, by any luck, it should succeed. For the rest, he did very well in the field; no one questioned that: for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... is the cure for being "at ease in Zion." Aspirations are good or bad according to the motive that prompts them. Some are essentially selfish, and such are necessarily evil. If we desire to be or do for selfish advantage, for glory and praise; if we aspire to be leaders, as so many religious people do, only that they may have authority or honor—our aspirations are evil. But each one of us owes it to himself and to God to desire strongly to be and to do ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... Scotland is that situated on the dangerous reef called the Inch Cape or Bell Rock. This lighthouse may fairly aspire to the title of the Eddystone of Scotland, whether we regard its high importance to navigation, the danger and difficulty of its erection, the beauty of its ...
— Smeaton and Lighthouses - A Popular Biography, with an Historical Introduction and Sequel • John Smeaton
... superstition." It was not true. Few women had tried more earnestly to pierce the accretions in which body and soul are enwrapped. The death of Mrs. Wilcox had helped her in her work. She saw a little more clearly than hitherto what a human being is, and to what he may aspire. Truer relationships gleamed. Perhaps the last word would be hope—hope even on this side ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... your mutual dissimulation. The love I once felt for her she has herself deliberately killed. I had a lover—she took him. I had faith in life, in honour, and in friendship. She destroyed all. A thief—she has dared to aspire to him! And you condoned her fault. You, with your craven restoration of her booty, thought the matter cleared and her a fit mate for ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... ever ready to help. That is foundation firm enough to build solid fabrics of hope upon, whose bases go down to the centre of all things, the purpose of God, and whose summits, like the upward shooting spire of some cathedral, aspire to, and seem ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... despair and madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound. When the full organ joins the tuneful quire, Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear; Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire, While solemn airs improve the sacred fire; And angels lean from Heav'n to hear. Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is given; His numbers rais'd a shade from Hell, Hers lift the ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... put it from me. From a cursory investigation I gleaned that no distinctions of social caste were drawn among the Boy Scouts; that almost any boy of a given age, regardless of the social status of his parents, might aspire to membership, or even to office, providing he but complied with certain tests—in short, that the Boy Scouts as at present constituted were, ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... has long conveyed a very miscellaneous idea, and they that take a dictionary into their hands, have been accustomed to expect from it a solution of almost every difficulty. If foreign words, therefore, were rejected, it could be little regarded, except by criticks, or those who aspire to criticism; and however it might enlighten those that write, would be all darkness to them that only read. The unlearned much oftener consult their dictionaries for the meaning of words, than for their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... neglect; a generous expansion, a proud elevation and conscious greatness of character, which is the best preparation for a decided course in every situation into which you can be thrown; and it is to this high and noble tone of character that I would have you to aspire. I would not have you to resemble those weak and meagre streamlets, which lose their direction at every petty impediment that presents itself, and stop and turn back, and creep around, and search out every channel through which they may wind their feeble and sickly course. Nor ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... 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
... wishes of men always aspire still farther the farther they advance, Bonaparte was no longer content with the possession of a small house in Paris. He now wanted an establishment in the ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... who "take charge concerning us lest at any time we dash our foot against a stone," and with devils who are perpetually on the watch to perplex us and do us injury. And, having familiarised our minds with the conceptions of these beings, we immediately aspire to hold communion with them. We represent to ourselves God, as "walking in the garden with us in the cool of the day," and teach ourselves "not to forget to entertain strangers, lest by so doing we ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... offence. Johannes, in Victoria, is of humble birth, which counts in extenuation of his unmannerly frankness in early years. Later he becomes a poet, and as such is exempt in some degree from the conventional restraint imposed on those who aspire to polite society. All these well-chosen characters are made to serve the author's purpose as channels for poetic utterance that might otherwise seem irrelevant. The extent to which this is done may be seen from the way in which Hamsun lets a character ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... short stories and short stories. On a perusal of those that Mr. RICHARD DEHAN has collected in volume form under the title of The Cost of Wings (HEINEMANN), I am bound to record my conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of The Dop Doctor. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... most beautiful women in Europe, to whom these children are playthings. For her there is only Louis Delgado. It is her firing of his dreams which makes him aspire to a throne. It is she who has the determination. He can see visions of power only in the colors of his absinthe glass. She uses men to her ends. Lapas is the latest—unless—" Blanco paused—"unless he is playing ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... told her all the conflict of my soul; my devouring passion, my bitter self-upbraiding. "Yes!" said I, "I am unworthy of you. I am an offcast from my family—a wanderer—a nameless, homeless wanderer, with nothing but poverty for my portion, and yet I have dared to love you—have dared to aspire to your love!" ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... vain, O Kings, doth time aspire To make your names oblivion's sport, While yonder hill wears like a tier The ruined grandeur of your fort. Though centuries falter and decline, Your proven strongholds shall remain Embodied memories of your line, Incarnate ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... the general enthusiasm, nodded all sparkling to Compton, and that made his heart beat and his soul aspire. So next over he claimed his rights, and took the ball. Luck still befriended him: he bowled four wickets in twelve overs; the wicket-keeper stumped a fifth: the rest were "the tail," and disposed of for a few runs, and the total was no more ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... but the green canvas bags, which he conceived would fit his needs, and an ambition. This last was nothing less than to strike it rich and set himself up among the eminently bourgeois of London. It seemed that the situation of the wealthy English middle class, with just enough gentility above to aspire to, and sufficient smaller fry to bully and patronize, appealed to his imagination, though of course he did not put it ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... also, one great glory of the nation is felt to be the works of its scientific and learned men of the past and present. Membership of one of the five academies of the Institute of France is counted among the highest honors to which a Frenchman can aspire. Most remarkable, too, is the extent to which other considerations than that of merit are set aside in selecting candidates for this honor. Quite recently a man was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences who was without either university or official position, and earned a modest ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Israel to Jerusalem, they caused him to be apprehended—tried him their great council—condemned him to death, and importuned the Roman governor to sentence him to the cross, as a rebel against Caesar. The charge was not supported—Christ did not aspire to temporal dominion—"his kingdom was not of this world." The governor declared him not guilty. Had Christ, like the Arabian deceiver, which afterwards arose, assumed the sword, marked his way with blood ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... in the mud?" "It would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud," said the officials. "Begone" said Chung. "The tortoise is a symbol of longevity and great wisdom. It would not befit me to aspire to greater wisdom than the tortoise. I, ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... and difficultly attainable in Chili, their talents have no opportunity of being developed, and are mostly employed in trifling pursuits; and as the expence of printing is enormous, they are discouraged from literary exertion, so that few among them aspire to the reputation of becoming authors. The knowledge of the civil and canon law is held in high estimation, so that many of the youth of Chili, after completing their academical education in their own ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... to increase the reserve of military manhood formed a motive for colonisation. In the first place, the surplus manhood of a nation was lost to it if it was allowed to pass under an alien flag by emigration. Those continental states from which emigration took place on a large scale began to aspire after the possession of colonies of their own, where their emigrants could still be kept under control, and remain subject to the obligations of service. Germany, the state which beyond all others measures its strength by its fighting man-power, was most affected by this motive, ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... issuing 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; ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... beneath the rank that a person of his name and honor might aspire to, the daughter of Thos. Topham, of the city of London, alderman and goldsmith, who, taking the Parliamentary side in the troubles then commencing, disappointed Sir George of the property which he expected at the demise of his father-in-law, who devised ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... gave the 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 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... down the river, and I did not see him. He is regarded as one of the ablest men in the service. His rise has been rapid, and he was lately invested with the C.I.E.—there seems, indeed, to be no position in Burma that he might not aspire to. In his absence his office was being administered by the Assistant Commissioner, a courteous young Englishman, who gave me my first experience of the Civil Service. I could not but envy the position ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... these suspicions, scoffed at them in a letter to his friend, Edmund Burke, and declared that he had not the "temerity and vanity" to aspire to the aims imputed ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... their soul, desiring Thee; and night- winds homeless roam with dole, reproaching Thee; the clouds aspire, and find no goal, and gush for ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... than in our country—an advantage that results naturally from the form of their government. There are about eight hundred persons in England who have a right to speak in public, and to support the interest of the kingdom; and near five or six thousand may in their turns aspire to the same honour. The whole nation set themselves up as judges over these, and every man has the liberty of publishing his thoughts with regard to public affairs, which shows that all the people in general are indispensably obliged to cultivate their understandings. ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... early experience had made him acquainted with the manner in which the voice ought to be modulated to make the utterance effective; and although he seldom ventured to recite, he was always a fair critic and a deeply interested auditor. The young ambition of a few had led them to aspire to authorship, and they established a monthly magazine. Although the several articles were not of the highest order, they were, nevertheless, quite equal to the average periodical writings of the day. In this magazine it is believed that Hume published his first song. It had been sent in the ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... to quit this city," Goliba said. "Hasten not thy decision, but what I will show thee secretly ere long will perhaps convince thee of the terrors of the Naya's reign. I have often counselled the queen to aspire to the virtues of truth, wisdom, justice and moderation, the great ornaments of the Emerald Throne, but my endeavours have been frustrated and the fruit ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... 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 ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... is that "age of admiration" as sings the poet of "Human Life," when the spell breathed into our ear by our genius, fortunate or unfortunate, is—"Aspire!" Then we adore art and the artists. It was RICHARDSON'S enthusiasm which gave REYNOLDS the raptures he caught in meditating on the description of a great painter; and REYNOLDS thought RAPHAEL the most ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... small place," said Mr. Montgomery, modestly, "but my tastes are plain and unobtrusive, and I do not aspire to a more conspicuous post. However, that is not to the purpose. A lady parishioner, desiring to donate a portion of her wealth to the poor, has placed in my hand a diamond ring, the proceeds to be devoted to charitable objects. I desire to sell it, and, knowing the high reputation of your ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... existence, among a foreign people from whom all that is false in my position may be concealed—not for my sake, but for the sake of my child. To more than this, to the happiness which some women enjoy, I must not, I dare not, aspire. ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... with her good opinion. That good opinion, I have the best of evidence to believe, is being undermined by one to whom you have ever been kind, but who, I am sure, you would not wish to become your son-in-law, though he has the audacity—if I may be allowed so strong an expression—to aspire after your daughter's hand! Having nothing of his own to recommend him, and knowing that I am in his way, he does not cease to traduce me to your daughter on every occasion, and I fear the insidious poison of his oily tongue has already had a serious effect on her mind, which, if ...
— Eveline Mandeville - The Horse Thief Rival • Alvin Addison
... the British Press, Which men must credit, more or less, To tell how things are done. So by all bards with hearts of fire Cheerfully be it sung, That still our people may not tire In doing well, but yet aspire; Let these renew TYRTAEUS' lyre, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... of Don John, and any man will perceive that all my views of happiness, both for my country and myself, imply a peaceable enjoyment of the union, joined with the legitimate restoration of our liberties, to which all good patriots aspire, and towards which all my designs have ever tended. As all the grandeur of Don John, on the contrary, consists in war, as there is nothing which he so much abhors as repose, as he has given ample proof of these inclinations in all his designs and enterprises, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and delicate-minded persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked. And thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... in life which it is in the power of all to follow and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement and every contest a victory—and this the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire after virtue is to gain her, and zealously to labour after her wages is to receive them. Those that seek her early will find her before it is late; her reward also is with her, and she will come quickly. For the breast ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... districts, which we are about to enter, suffer from the Gaum, or razzia, of the neighbouring Anezah and the Juhaynah;—the two tribes, however, not mixing. The bandits, numbering, they say, from fifty to sixty, mounted on horses and dromedaries, only aspire to plunder some poor devil-shepherd of a few camels, goats, and muttons. They never attack in rear; they always sleep at night, save when every moment is precious for "loot"-driving; and their weapons, which may be deadly in the narrows, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... be brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will 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 after 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 schools, the costly ornaments ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... or $20,000,000. When impecunious counts, lords, dukes and princes, having wasted the inheritance originally obtained by robbery, and perpetuated by robbery, are on the anxious lookout for marriages with great fortunes, and the American money magnates, satiated with vulgar wealth, aspire to titled connections, the arrangement becomes easy. [Footnote: More than 500 American women have married titled foreigners. The sum of about $220,000,000, it is estimated (1909), has followed them to Europe.] Romance can be dispensed with, and the lawyers ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... only was this rest for a short time disturbed. During the troublous period the neighboring country of Egypt, which had recovered its freedom, and witnessed a revival of its ancient prosperity, under the Psamatik family, began once more to aspire to the possession of those provinces which, being divided off from the rest of the Asiatic continent by the impassable Syrian desert, seems politically to belong to Africa almost more than to Asia. Psamatik I., the Psammetichus of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... this, the longed-for thing Which wanderers on the restless foam, Unsheltered beggars, birds on wing, Aspire to, ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... 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
... good works, may be led, by the divine blessing, to acknowledge the reality and power and beauty of religion, and be induced in like manner to glorify his heavenly Father. In short, in comparison with his thoughtless comrades, he must not only aspire to become a better man, but, from the constraining motives of the gospel, struggle to be also in every ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... have lived your life, and there is no man before me 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 ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... compliments till just before we separated, when the future editor inquired of me whether I had ever read Quintilian; and, on my replying in the negative, expressed his surprise that any gentleman should aspire to become a critic who had never read Quintilian, with the comfortable information, however, that he could supply me with a Quintilian at half-price, that is, a translation made by himself some years previously, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... not pretend, therefore, to improve upon the able productions of such eminent writers as Juan de le Concepcion, Martinez Zuniga, Tomas de Comyn and others, nor do I aspire, through this brief composition, to detract from the merit of Jagor's work, which, in its day, commended itself as a valuable book of reference. But since then, and within the last twenty years, this Colony has made great strides on the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... means a house with an entrance-'hall,' Puddingpote Bower did not aspire to be one. A visitor dived, in medias res, into the passage at once. In it stood an oak-cased family clock, and a large glass-case, with an alarming-looking, stuffed tiger-like cat, on an imitation marble slab. Underneath the slab, indeed all about the passage, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... that her guest thought the tea detestable and the cake stale. It was as necessary for people of Mrs. Meadowsweet's class to go in for strong tea and high living as it was for people of Mrs. Bertram's class to aspire to faded felt in the matter of carpets, and water bewitched in the shape of tea. Each after her kind, Mrs. Bertram murmured. But as she had an object in view it was necessary for her to earn the good-will of ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... bosom all the energies of the past, yet is itself an exhalation of the morning. I cast away in this new moment all my once hoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now, for the first time seem I to know any thing rightly. The simplest words,—we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire. ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... hair until it fell down. She was not a person to be judged—she was one of the unexplained incidents of existence. The hour has passed when the clearly moral can sum up the responsibilities of a creature born apparently without brain, or soul or courage. Those who aspire to such morals as are expressed by fairness—mere fairness—are much given to hesitation. Courage had never been demanded of Feather so far. She had none whatever and now she only felt panic and resentment. She had no time ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... love takes deeper sense, And doth her love more recompense: Their first night's meeting, where sweet kisses Are th' only crowns of both their blisses He swims t' Abydos, and returns: Cold Neptune with his beauty burns; Whose suit he shuns, and doth aspire Hero's fair tower ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... you talk of losing Fiesco? Good God! How could you ever conceive the ambitious idea of possessing him? Why, my child, aspire to such a height? A height where you cannot but be seen, and must come into comparison with others. Indeed, my dear, he was a knave or a fool who joined you with FIESCO. (Taking her hand with a look of compassion.) ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... thought of leaving my sweet Jeanette alone in that gloomy house. But, on the other hand, how could I aspire to help if ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield |
