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Attain   Listen
verb
Attain  v. i.  
1.
To come or arrive, by motion, growth, bodily exertion, or efforts toward a place, object, state, etc.; to reach. "If by any means they might attain to Phenice." "Nor nearer might the dogs attain." "To see your trees attain to the dignity of timber." "Few boroughs had as yet attained to power such as this."
2.
To come or arrive, by an effort of mind. "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I can not attain unto it."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Attain" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Doctors Don Alvaro de Mesa, and Don Antonio Rodriguez, for neither more nor less justice can be secured than they choose, and they are even disturbing the government and good order which ought to prevail. Even if I should not attain and enjoy the benefit of this improvement, I beseech your Majesty that, if more auditors are to be sent, they may be persons of tried experience in Audiencia duties—to whom it would be well to give senior rank therein, for those who are in it now are totally ignorant of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... of your society diverge in two different directions, which have totally different aims and purposes, and which require different means in order to attain lasting success. Since the number of insane has increased alarmingly within the last few years, in all civilized countries, so that the responsibility of the proper charge of them occupies continually not only the community, but also the State; and since the public as well as the private ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various

... competition assuming nightmare proportions—a small family of two or three children is all the man of moderate income can allow himself. Four is an outside number, but it is worth making some sacrifices to attain it. Professor E. A. Ross has recently stated in The American Journal of Sociology that although restriction 'results in diffusion of economic well-being; lessens infant mortality; ceases population pressure, which is the principal ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... Bill, in no very tolerant tone. He wished it made quite plain that he cared nothing about the "selling up" process to which he knew he must be subjected. Lablache noted the haughty manner and resented it, but still he gave no outward sign. He had a definite object to attain and he would not allow his anger to interfere with ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... hanging loose upon its hinges the passer-by may behold the evidences of loneliness and gloom,—the very embodiment of desolation,—a void, a silence, that is almost portentous. The roof, with its crop of quaint gables, in which proportion has been sacrificed to an effort to attain architectural liveliness, is covered with a greenish-grey moss on the north side, and has long been given over to decay on all sides. The cat-squirrels that occasionally scamper across the crumbling shingles ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... is of more consequence, in these ideals, is their conception of what life tends to and must ultimately attain unto. The final consummation of life meant nought else to Jesus than God-likeness, which He called "Eternal Life." To have grown to the perfection of those moral and spiritual characteristics which adorn God Himself; to have the human will so subdued ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones

... of the Palace he did not know. There had been some difficulty. She had spoken to him, had urged something upon him. But he had got rid of her somehow, and had found himself sitting in his bedroom at the Southminster Hotel. Anything to be alone! He had felt that was the one thing in life to attain. But now that he was alone, solitude suddenly took monstrous and hideous proportions, and became a horror to flee from. He could not bear the face of a fellow-creature. He could not bear this ghoul of solitude. There was no room for him between these great millstones. They ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley

... thou attain, Great the toil is, small the gain, If the King thou seekest therein Travel not, with ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... of instants. Then Skippy in the throes of despair saw the plump little hand of Miss Jennie Tupper reach out and casually close over the offending pearl stud. He was saved, saved by the miracle of compassion and forgiveness that lifts women to those sublime heights where mere men cannot attain! ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... example, does he read books? And yet he is clever! I looked at him today and envied him. His relations with everybody are so free, so clever, he has a word for each and every one. You can see at once that whatever he should desire he is sure to attain." ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... looked back from afar with an envious eye at the brilliant world from which she had been exiled, and longed for better days. All hope was not at an end for her. By a strange law which does not speak well for human nature, vice finds success easier to attain than virtue. There is no courtesan, no matter how low she has fallen, who cannot find a dupe ready to defend against the world an honour of which no vestige remains. A man who doubts the virtue of the most ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Robledo is what it represents itself to be and holds together, we may hope to see the reign of the young Alfonso XIII. open with good auguries this year (1902), as it seems to be certain that he is to attain his majority two years in ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... board, which was the equivalent of a hundred court. Within the wards, or hundreds, the burgesses were grouped together in township, parish, or manor.... Into the civic organization of London, to whose special privileges all lesser cities were ever striving to attain, the elements of local administration embodied in the township, the hundred, and the shire thus entered as component parts.[5] Constitutionally, therefore, London was a little world in itself, and in a less degree the same was ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske

... have attained to any such high literary eminence as an essayist as that which she has secured as a novelist. Readable as are her essays,—and the five just named are certainly worthy of a place in her complete works,—yet they are not of the highest order. She could attain the highest range of her power only when something far more subtile and intrinsic was concerned. That this is true may be seen in these essays; for even here she writes the best only when she has human ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke

... to be no dove, but a venomous serpent, I mean to pursue thee, as an immemorial enemy, with every hate and all my might, albeit this that I do to thee can scarce properly be styled vengeance, but rather chastisement, inasmuch as vengeance should overpass the offence and this will not attain thereto; for that, an I sought to avenge myself, considering to what a pass thou broughtest my soul, thy life, should I take it from thee, would not suffice me, no, nor the lives of an hundred others such as thou, since, slaying thee, I should but slay a vile, wicked and worthless ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio

... company, and when success has been attained, the public are granted the privilege of purchas- ing shares — but at such a price as the syndicate choses to put upon them, and, not seldom, that is the highest they ever attain. This is particu- larly the case with mining companies, the successful ones having certainly only benefited the few. This syndicate system has given rise to a bogus imitation, which, however, appears to have met with but limited success. Circulars in lithographed writing, marked "private ...
— Everybody's Guide to Money Matters • William Cotton, F.S.A.

... little lawn, and the rhododendrons and other shrubs upon it. Obviously her position was by no means so bad as he had feared, and it crossed his mind that she must somehow have claimed and sold the jewels to attain it. He did not blame her for one moment. Soon his sharpened ear detected footsteps upon the stairs, at which his heart thumped so painfully that he could hardly stand firm. "Dear me! what will she think ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... the celestial regions, and the thrones of sapphires, and all the secrets of heaven were made known to him by his attendant angel. He said that the sacred book, called Zendavesta, descended from above expressly for him, and that if Gushtasp followed the precepts in that blessed volume, he would attain celestial felicity. Gushtasp readily became a convert to his principles, forsaking the pure adoration of God for the religion ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... thoroughfare. The rose bushes from the garden almost lapped the water as they passed. Behind, the long low cottage, the deserted dinner-table, the smooth lawn with its beds of scarlet geraniums and drooping lilac shrubs in the background, seemed like a scene from fairyland, to attain a perfection of detail unreal, ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... whale. —Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... as people on the sea, timid and prone to sea-sickness, think they will suffer from it less on board a merchantman than on a boat, and for the same reason shift their quarters to a trireme, but do not attain anything by these changes, for they take with them their timidity and qualmishness, so changes of life do not remove the sorrows and troubles of the soul; which proceed from want of experience and reflection, and from inability or ignorance rightly to enjoy ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... five million pounds of beef on foot to be delivered at Fort Buford. My client is a sub-contractor under that award. There are times, your honor, when it becomes necessary to resort to questionable means to attain an end. This is one of them. Within a week after my client had given bonds for the fulfillment of his contract, he made the discovery that he was dealing with a double-faced set of scoundrels. From that day until the present ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... out of here," whispered Rob to Merritt, whose breast was decorated with the coveted bronze cross and red ribbon, which is the highest honor a scout can attain. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson

... meanness and poverty, that the English name became a term of reproach; and several generations elapsed before one family of Saxon pedigree was raised to any considerable honours; or could so much as attain the rank of baron of the realm [a]. These facts are so apparent from the whole tenour of the English history, that none would have been tempted to deny or elude them, were they not heated by the controversies of faction; while one party was ABSURDLY afraid of those ABSURD ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... first thing to be done, is always to "get a line ashore." On the success of the attempts made to accomplish this, all the hopes of the sufferers depend. Various methods are resorted to, by the people on board the ship, in order to attain this end, where there are no means at hand on the shore, for effecting it. Perhaps the most common mode is to attach a small line to a cask, or to some other light and bulky substance which the surf can easily throw up upon ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various

... kiss he received a few years later from the immortal Beethoven, his great triumphs in the Paris salons and the defeat of his rival Thalberg. After the appearance of the violin virtuoso Paganini, he resolved to attain the highest development of his musical genius and to become so world-renowned as none has been before him, and in this was successful. He has not only maintained his standing as the greatest master of modern piano virtuosos, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various

... splendid Christian manhood of Peter has been now for nineteen centuries before the eyes of the world as a type of character which Christian men should emulate—a vision of life whose influence has touched millions with its inspiration. The price which had to be paid to attain this nobleness of character and this vastness of holy influence was not ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... rule. But, because of the disposition of some of the chiefs, there is no security, nor have they come to pay their tribute. It is not in the necessary state of quiet and perfection, because, in order to attain that, it is necessary to maintain a garrison there of two hundred soldiers, whom I have not at the present time. The land produces but little, nor is there any great quantity of gold, although considerable wax and tortoise-shell is found. In some parts the people ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair

... likewise to the emperor and influence him in the same direction. I have paved the way for you. I hope the French ambassador will, in spite of himself, be our ally, and by his defiant and arrogant bearing, attain for us the object which we have hitherto been unable to accomplish by our persuasion and our arguments. Make haste! Burn ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... It was constructed at Saint Nazaire, by the "Societe des Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire," and is the fastest man-of-war afloat. It has registered 17 knots with ordinary pressure, and with increase of pressure can make 18 knots, but to attain such high speed a very powerful engine is necessary. In fact, a vessel 303 ft. long, 33 ft. wide, and drawing 12 ft. of water, requires an engine which can ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 497, July 11, 1885 • Various

... the Duke, 'that in those South American Republics, as in the United States, a man has to be born in the country to attain ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy

... act which was the shadow of a coming event, was passed by Parliament, and received the Royal assent. It provided that Prince Albert should be Regent in case that the Queen should die before her next lineal descendant should attain the ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood

... and persevere in the honor you pay to him; for if you act thus, you will enjoy prosperity; you will be freed from your slavery, and will get the victory over your enemies: which blessings it is not possible you should attain, either by weapons of war, or by the strength of your bodies, or by the multitude of your assistants; for God has not promised to grant these blessings by those means, but by being good and righteous men; and ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... dice, That hast the sight of her, and I th' absence. For possible is, since thou hast her presence, And art a knight, a worthy and an able, That by some cas*, since fortune is changeable, *chance Thou may'st to thy desire sometime attain. But I that am exiled, and barren Of alle grace, and in so great despair, That there n'is earthe, water, fire, nor air, Nor creature, that of them maked is, That may me helpe nor comfort in this, Well ought I *sterve in wanhope* and distress. *die in despair* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... the philosopher, "at my possessing so simple a piece of information. It has cost me but little trouble to attain it, yet I would gladly hope that the labour I have taken in that matter may convince you of my real desire to call ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... about myself, and answer your questions. How I like the inanimate part of Rome you will soon perceive at my arrival in England; I am far gone in medals, lamps, idols, prints, etc." and all the small commodities to the purchase of which I can attain; I would buy the Coliseum if I could: Judge. My mornings are spent in the most agreeable manner; my evenings ill enough. Roman conversations are dreadful things! such untoward mawkins as the princesses! and the princes are worse. Then the whole city ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... Wotton, who had gone on several embassies, and was intimate with the greatest Princes, chose to retire from all, saying, The utmost happiness a man could attain to, was to be at leisure to be, and to do good; never reflecting on his former years, but with tears, he would say, "How much time have I to repent of! and how little ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown

... it, so long as you live a poet, will you feel yourself a stranger or a child amongst men. And all for what? I have that confidence in your talent, that I am sure you will make no ridiculous failures. What you write for fame, will be far superior to what others write for popularity. But these will attain their end, and you, with far more merit, will be only known as having failed. And know you not that men revenge on mediocrity the praise extorted from them by indisputable celebrity? It is a crime to be above the vulgar, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... of gold," sitting in Indian chairs on the terrace, with the perfume of roses and jasmines all around us, the valley of the Oreto, Palermo, Sta. Catarina, Monreale,—all were but parts of a dreamy vision, like the heavenly city of Sir Percivale, to attain which he passed across the golden bridge that burned after him as he vanished in the intolerable light ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various

... the adversaries acknowledge that, in justification, the remission of sins is necessary first. For we all are under sin. Wherefore we reason thus:-To attain the remission of sins is to be justified, according to Ps. 32, 1: Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven. By faith alone in Christ, not through love, not because of love or works, do we acquire ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... of that time, and now reading them over I am not able to understand how a man could attain to the state of mental exaltation which I arrived at. It was a ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... Greenback party in the late seventies; and they had jostled government ownership of railroads for first place in pronunciamentos of labor and agricultural organizations and of third parties all during the eighties. Free silver, on the other hand, although not ignored in the earlier period, did not attain foremost rank among the demands of the dissatisfied classes until the last decade of the century and more particularly after ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... to be in order to show that science is now competent to deal with this question; not that she can give a final and conclusive answer, but that we can reach results which are probably in the main correct. We may grant very cheerfully that we can attain no demonstration; the most that we can claim for our results will be a high degree of probability. If our conclusions are very probably correct, we shall do well to act according to them; for all our actions in life are suited ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler

... with leaf and flower, that it seemed as if the blood in her veins was not slow-moving human blood, but volatile sap. She was of a race that will come in the far future, when we shall have outgrown our egoism—the brainless egoism of a little boy pulling off flies' wings. We shall attain philosophic detachment and emotional sympathy. We have even now far outgrown the age when a great genius like Shakespeare could be so clumsy in the interpretation of other than human life. We have left behind us the bloodshot centuries when killing was the only sport, and we have come to the ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... far brought about, both in and out of Parliament. Those who figured as the defenders of industries harassed beyond bearing by the Socialist meddlers spoke with more fire, with more semblance, at any rate, of putting their hearts into it than any men of their kind had been able to attain since the "giant" days of the first Factory debates. Those, on the other hand, who were urging the House to a yet sterner vigilance in protecting the worker—even the grown man—from his own helplessness and need, who believed that law spells freedom, and that the experience of half a century was ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... character is want of reverence. I think it is want of reverence which makes you press forward to that for which you confess yourself unfit; it is want of reverence for holiness which makes you not care to attain it; want of reverence for the Holy Word that makes you treat it as a mere lesson; and in smaller matters your pertness is want of reverence for your superiors; you would not be ready to believe and to say the worst of others, if you reverenced what good there may be in them. ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge

... he showed conspicuously in battle; in other respects he was modest and obliging, and so far studious of Greek learning and discipline, as to honor and admire those that excelled in it, though he did not himself attain a proficiency in them equal to his desire, by reason of his employments. For if ever there were any men, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... excitement renders him unsteady, he has no business ever to tackle dangerous game alone. If, on the other hand, he discovers that IDENTICALLY THE SAME nervous excitement happens to steady his front sight to rocklike rigidity-a rigidity he could not possibly attain in normal conditions-then he will probably keep out ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... forty, and in the absence of the canines, it may be reduced to thirty-six; the incisor teeth are devoid of the fold seen in those of the horse: the grinders regularly diminish in size from the middle of the series to its front end; while their crowns are short, early attain their full length, and exhibit simple ridges or tubercles, in place of the complex foldings of the ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley

... sound, their pace was beyond comparison; nor could any modern projectile attain any velocity comparable to it; even the speed of explosion was slow to it. And yet for spirits they were moving slowly, who being independent of all material things, travel with such velocities as that, for instance, of thought. But they were controlled by one still dwelling on Earth, ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany

... north some three hundred miles we come to Amoy, the first important seaport in the adjacent province of Fukien. The aspect of the country has undergone a change. Hills attain the altitude of mountains, and the alluvial plains, so conspicuous about Canton, become ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... Amaranthus ten feet high. A year later the same species in the same place matured in the drought at four inches. One hopes the land may breed like qualities in her human offspring, not tritely to "try," but to do. Seldom does the desert herb attain the full stature of the type. Extreme aridity and extreme altitude have the same dwarfing effect, so that we find in the high Sierras and in Death Valley related species in miniature that reach a comely growth in mean temperatures. Very fertile are the desert plants ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin

... as that which I hear very often, "That a man does not know how to pass his time." It would have been but ill spoken by Methusalem in the nine hundred and sixty-ninth year of his life, so far it is from us, who have not time enough to attain to the utmost perfection of any part of any science, to have cause to complain that we are forced to be idle for want of work. But this you will say is work only for the learned, others are not capable either ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... than by saying that he, perhaps, of all men of this generation, came nearest to the mould and ideal of manhood, which every English father would like to see his son aspire to, and, if possible, to attain. The bounty of nature, enriched and developed not only by early training, but by constant self-discipline through life, blended in him gifts and graces which, taken alone, are rare, and in such attractive union are rarer still. Body, mind and character, the schoolroom, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... to go stubbornly on towards my aim, and I shall attain my end," thought Levin; "and it's something to work and take trouble for. This is not a matter of myself individually; the question of the public welfare comes into it. The whole system of culture, the chief element in the condition of the people, must be completely transformed. Instead of poverty, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... loved this lady; the return of love, with which she honoured him, diffused a sunshine over all his troubled world; and, if the wish of being hers excited more impatient thoughts about the settlement of his condition, it also gave him fresh strength to attain it. He was full of occupation, while in Rudolstadt; ardent, serious, but not unhappy. His literary projects were proceeding as before; and, besides the enjoyment of virtuous love, he had that of intercourse with many worthy ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... but we Can be such kings, nor of such subjects be. Who is so safe as we, where none can do Treason to us, except one of us two? True and false fears let us refrain; Let us love nobly, and live, and add again Years and years unto years, till we attain To write three-score: this is the ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... to reach the walls; an opening in them must be accomplished, and to attain this purpose the party only had their pocket-knives. Happily the temple walls were built of brick and wood, which could be penetrated with little difficulty; after one brick had been taken out, the rest ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... conclusion of the reorganization, Mr. Lowington made a speech, "comforting the mourners," and reminding all the students that, on the 1st of October, there would be another distribution of the places of honor. He hoped those who had failed to attain what they aspired to reach would not be discouraged, for, after all, they had been gaining knowledge, and thus the real end of the ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic

... the treasure beneath the soil in order that his sons might become rich by the culture of it, which they necessarily, though unwittingly, effected in their search for the gold; and thus our only happiness consists in our efforts to attain the same, though the instant we become sensible of this, we find that we have then indeed exhausted the cup, and like the rest that have done so before us, take a long breath, and sigh, "all is vanity!" and begin to think ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.

... could but attain my wish, I'd have each day one wholesome dish, Of plain meat, or fowl, ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... which she aspired, by the beauty and splendour of her public buildings, by her works of art in sculpture, architecture, and painting, and by the pomp and magnificence of her religious festivals. All these objects Athens was enabled to attain in an incredibly short space of time, through the genius and energy of her citizens and the vast resources at her command. No state has ever exhibited so much intellectual activity and so great a progress in art as was displayed by Athens in the period which ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith

... Members of Parliament know this well, and are sensible about it. The wisest among them do not press for open statements which if made to the world would imperil the very object which Parliament and the public have directed those responsible to them to seek to attain. What is objected to in secret diplomacy hardly includes that which from its very nature must be negotiated in ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane

... note that we have begun to attain completed results in the comprehensive scheme of seacoast defense and fortification entered upon eight years ago. A large sum has been already expended, but the cost of maintenance will be inconsiderable ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland

... Philae now, when out of the water, as it was all the time when I was last in Egypt, looks like a thing stricken with some creeping malady—one of those maladies which begin in the lower members of a body, and work their way gradually but inexorably upward to the trunk, until they attain the heart. ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... question for the speculative. At present, our commercial activity affords ample employment for both. There can be no doubt, however, that in connection with the steam-engine, and that admirable invention of modern date, the screw-propeller, iron ship-building is destined to attain and enjoy an enlarged existence; to the full maturity of which its present condition, healthful and prosperous as it appears, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... the ibex is chiefly owing to the noble horns: which nature has bestowed upon it. In full-grown animals the horns, which curve gracefully over the shoulders, are from three to four feet in length along the curve, and about eleven inches in circumference at the base. Very few attain a greater length than four feet; but I have heard of their being three inches longer. Their beards, six or eight inches in length, arc of shaggy black hair. The females, light greyish-brown in colour, are hardly a third the size of the males; and their horns are round and tapering, from ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... of darkness, I regained the deck and daylight, and the nausea soon left my chest and the pain my head. I then made this reflection, that whatever glory a naval officer may attain, if he went through the ordeal I was about essaying, he richly deserved it. The captain and some of the other officers now came on board. I was introduced to most of them, and the skipper made himself very merry with an account of my recent adventure ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... the cupboard, I found more costly curiosities in the shape of ivory carvings from Japan and specimens of rare silk from China. I began to feel weary of disinterring the Major's treasures. The longer I searched, the farther I seemed to remove myself from the one object that I had it at heart to attain. After closing the door of the second cupboard, I almost doubted whether it would be worth my while to proceed farther and open the third and ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... morning; I measured my drawing; I plumbed it throughout; I sketched in, having regard to la jambe qui porte; I modelled par les masses. During breakfast I considered how I should work during the afternoon; at night I lay awake thinking of what I might do to attain a better result. But my efforts availed me nothing; it was like one who, falling, stretches his arms for help and grasps the yielding air. How terrible are the languors and yearnings of impotence! how wearing! what an aching void they leave in the heart! And all this I suffered ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore

... follows shall not sin. By thee kings reign and princes decree justice. By thee, rid of their native rudeness, their minds and tongues being polished, the thorns of vice being torn up by the roots, those men attain high places of honour, and become fathers of their country, and companions of princes, who without thee would have melted their spears into pruning-hooks and ploughshares, or would perhaps be feeding swine ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury

... the moon's terminator, which separates the dark area from the region upon which the sun (on the right) shines, are the mountain peaks, about to disappear at sunset. The long shadows cast by the mountains just within the illuminated area are plainly seen. Some of the peaks of the lunar Apennines attain a ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale

... yours, a trillion light-years away in space, eons distant in time. The natural laws which govern us differ from those controlling you. In our universe, you would be hopelessly lost, completely helpless, unless you possessed the knowledge that your people will not attain even in millions of years. But we, who are so much older and greater than you, have for so long studied the nature of the other universes that we can enter and leave them at will, taking what we wish, doing as we wish, creating or destroying worlds whenever the need arises, coming and hurtling ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei

... advanced in front and on the flank, and only the incessant fire of the scouts sufficed to keep them in check. A second savage attempted to gain the eminence which commanded the position where the scouts were posted, but just as he was about to attain his object, McClelland saw him turn a summerset, and, with a frightful yell, fall down the hill, a corpse. The mysterious agent had again interposed in their behalf. The sun was now disappearing behind the ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... now, but later, when there could be no possibility of slight to Dorothy Fair. His honest work in the world he would do, were it in the ploughshares or the wayside ditches, with no striving for aggrandizement through untoward ways, and so would he humbly attain the ...
— Madelon - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... resting primarily on the support of the bourgeois class, was greatly augmented by the Concordat of 1516, which made the monarch almost the supreme head of the Gallican church. For two centuries the crown had been struggling to attain this position. It was because so large a degree of autonomy was granted to the national church that the French felt satisfied not to go to the extreme of secession from the Roman communion. It was because the king had already achieved a large control over his own clergy ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... departure. On his return to Crete, some months later, he was accordingly arrested, and the evidence supplied by the Minoan formula was accepted by the Candia Tribunal as a crowning proof of his guilt. Aristides—"the Unjust"—was thus condemned to three months' imprisonment.' Few criminals attain to the dignity of being convicted on evidence 3,500 ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie

... multitudes of that city and did nought to relieve the suffering, or to improve the lives, of his fellow-beings. He died, and over his remains has been erected a shrine to which the thousands go for worship and for inspiration to attain unto that ideal of life which they believe him ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones

... of that no one now can tell. But, about the year 1770, Patrick Kerr set about to put an end to Abbotrule Parish and Abbotrule Kirk, that had seen many an open-air Sacrament on summer Sabbaths long ago. For four years the laird laboured to attain his end, and a blithe man was he when, in 1774, he got Eliott of Stobs and Douglas of Douglas to side with him and wipe out for evermore the kirk and parish of Abbotrule. The parish was joined to the parishes of Hobkirk ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... then these facts to philosophise on: that all men desire perfect happiness: that this desire is natural, springing from the rational soul which sets man above the brute: that on earth man may attain to contentment, and to some happiness, but not to perfect happiness: that consequently nature has planted in man a desire for which on earth she has provided no ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.

... the great river (Sarasvati), shall obtain the great fruit of a horse sacrifice! From this day there will be no fear in this tirtha from snakes and wild beasts! By small exertions, again, one shall attain to great result here!' Having said these words, that Muni of great energy proceeded to heaven. Even thus the adorable Arshtishena of great energy became crowned with success. In that very tirtha in the Krita age, Sindhudwipa of great energy, and Devapi also, O monarch, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... have no scholarship. Individuals we have in each of these lines; but mere individuality cannot be recognized as the aggregation of a family, a nation, or a race; or as the interpretation of any of them. And until we attain the role of civilization, we cannot stand up and hold our place in the world of culture and enlightenment. And the forfeiture of such a place means, despite, inferiority, repulsion, drudgery, poverty, and ultimate ...
— Civilization the Primal Need of the Race - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Paper No. 3 • Alexander Crummell

... and resolve; and act, as if we felt that ourselves and all that we have belong to God by the twofold right of creation and redemption; act, as if selfishness were our deadliest foe, and as if it were our great business to attain its mortification and overthrow; act, as if disinterested love, a soul like angels, like God, were the greatest good to be possessed by an intelligent being; act, as if we were prayerfully watching the calls of Christ on our generosity, and were ready and ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark

... from any authority derived from an inferior source. His chief delight lay in the attempt to embody, in what seemed to him the natural form of verse, the thoughts in him constantly moving at least in the direction of the ideal, even when he was most conscious of his inability to attain to the utterance of them. But it was only in the retirement of his own chamber that he attempted their embodiment; of all things, he shrank from any communion whatever concerning these cherished matters. Nor, indeed, had he any friends who could tempt him to share with them what ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald

... engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... Either must he attain the treasure—for so ran the inexorable logic of the shadow-land of the unconscious—or else sink into the all- devouring sea, the blackness eater of the light that swallowed to extinction the sun each night . . . the sun that arose ever in rebirth next morning in the east, and ...
— The Red One • Jack London

... and by "more capital" that a greater or less quantity of wealth abstained from is employed for a longer or shorter time; or, in other words, that laborers and capitalists undergo more or less sacrifice in exertion and abstinence, respectively, to attain a given result. This is the contribution to cost of production made by Mr. Cairnes, and briefly defined as follows: "In the case of labor, the cost of producing a given commodity will be represented by the number of average laborers employed in its production—regard at ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... away. Over the flaming leaves Freezes the sky. It is the season grieves, Not you, not I. All our spring-times, all our summers, We have kept the longing warm within. Now we leave the after-comers To attain the dreams we did not win. O we have wakened, Sweet, and had our birth, And that's the end of earth; And we have toiled and smiled and kept the light, And ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... many of the sciences, bear witness that women, even in their present oppressed condition, can attain to quite as great distinction, and can attain to quite as lofty names as men. Their emancipation (as I am given to understand) drawing very near, there is no saying how soon they may "push us from our stools" at these tables, or how soon our better half of human nature, standing in this place ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens

... growing understanding of all kinds of people with their varying experiences. We send our young people to Europe that they may lose their provincialism and be able to judge their fellows by a more universal test, as we send them to college that they may attain the cultural background and a larger outlook; all of these it is possible to acquire in other ways, as this member of the woman's club had ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... for the gods of our fathers and of our country. It is just that what all worship be considered one. We look on the same stars, the sky is common, the same world surrounds us. What difference does it make by what paths each seeks the truth? We cannot attain to so great a secret by one road; but this discussion is rather for persons at ease; we ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... there is to be found great abundance of gold, silver, precious stones, cloth of gold, silks, all manner of spices, grocery wares, and other kinds of merchandise of an inestimable price, which both the Spaniard and Portuguese, through the length of their journeys, cannot well attain unto. ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt

... precious stones; and even arrived at an excellence in the art of introducing numerous colors into the same vase, to which our European workmen, in spite of their improvements in many branches of this manufacture, are still unable to attain. A few years ago the glass-makers of Venice made several attempts to imitate the variety of colors found in antique cups; but as the component parts were of different densities, they did not all cool, or set, at the same ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... of financial inferiority; and though Dryfoos's soul bowed itself and crawled, it was with a gambler's admiration of wonderful luck. Other men said these many-millioned millionaires were smart, and got their money by sharp practices to which lesser men could not attain; but Dryfoos believed that he could compass the same ends, by the same means, with the same chances; he ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... The workings and ways of Nature are infinite, and the principles of Art are finite deductions from these infinite examples. As yet these deductions have been but imperfectly made. The most exact and truthful representation of Nature may be the rule of the artist, but it is not an easy thing to attain to an understanding of the truth of Nature. The actual is not always the real. Literal truth is not always exact truth; and the seeming truth, which is what Art must often represent, is very different from the absolute truth. And here there ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... have therefore borrowed a MS. copy of Dr. Black's Lectures. I have bought his 'Experiments on Magnesia and Quicklime,' and also Fourcroy's Lectures, translated from the French by one Mr. Elliot, of Edinburgh. And I am determined to study the subject with unwearied attention until I attain some accurate knowledge of chemistry, which is of no less use in the practice of the arts than it is in that of medicine." He adds, that he continues to receive the cordial approval of the Commissioners for the manner in which he performs his duties, and says, "I take ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles

... considerations which early led to the general adoption of a recording system for deeds of land in all the colonies extended to wills, since they also might convey it. Such records, to attain their purpose, had to be public in the fullest sense. Nothing was allowed to go upon them which had not some kind of authoritative sanction proceeding from the State. Deeds were first to be acknowledged before a magistrate. As to wills, the practice finally ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD

... have created, Italian art,—the great St. Francis! Such are the deep, such are the penetrating, such are the far-reaching effects of sanctity. If a soul is, by divine grace, given wholly to God, it is impossible for us to say to what heights it may attain, or what good, in every region of human ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... state of mental depression, which continued so long that her friends began to fear for her reason. Not until after the lapse of a year, when she received the above-mentioned letter from her son, did her mind attain to anything like its former state. The knowledge that he was yet, alive, that he thought of her, and still cherished her memory, gave a new impulse to her fainting spirit, and a quicker motion to the circle of life. There was yet room to hope for him. But, as time went on, there ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur

... "I did not laugh, and this is not England, though what you consider prejudices do not count for so much as they used to there, while there is, one is told quite frequently, no limit to what a man may attain to here, if he ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss

... those who can and are glorified by those who cannot; the great composers who can give us neither harmony nor melody, and therefore have a fanatical following among those who labor under like disabilities; the great writers who are unable to attain strength, lucidity, or beauty, and therefore secure praise for profundity and occult wisdom,—none of these influence him. In these, as in other things, the Hohenzollern sanity asserts itself. He recognizes the fact that ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... present day, and men admire in real lift the lily-cheeked, small-waisted, diaphanous-looking creatures idealized by living artists. When we become accustomed to a nobler kind of beauty we shall attain to a loftier ideal. Men will seek nobility rather than prettiness, strength rather than weakness, physical perfection rather than physical degeneracy, in the women they select as mothers of their children. ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... on our right, running fast and shouting, but we reached the centre long before they, and the mob following, could attain to the end of the line nearest to them; and just then, as I glanced to my left, I saw the rajah clap spurs to his horse, as if to ride up, but he reined instantly, and his two companions followed his example; dignity forbade this. We must go ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn

... called fee simple or otherwise, are and must be subordinate to the public title. The Socialist Party strives to prevent land from being used for the purpose of exploitation and speculation. It demands the collective possession, control, or management of land to whatever extent may be necessary to attain that end. It is not opposed to the occupation and possession of land by those using it in a useful bona fide ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... to the physical eye, its growth is also visible, and we do not think of feeling impatient at the long months and years required for it to attain its full proportions; nor do we seek by any forcing process to produce a man at 10 instead of at 20 or 30 years ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands

... to have been formed by laughter. Equally strong, however, every line of the face that meant blended things carried a notice of surety. Dick Forrest was sure— sure, when his hand reached out for any object on his desk, that the hand would straightly attain the object without a fumble or a miss of a fraction of an inch; sure, when his brain leaped the high places of the hog cholera text, that it was not missing a point; sure, from his balanced body in the revolving desk-chair to the balanced back-head of him; sure, in heart and brain, of life ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... touching the future ubiquity of the Anglo-Saxon race and language, is that put forward by Provost Paradol, a learned Frenchman. He says "that neither Russia nor united Germany, supposing that they should attain the highest fortune, can pretend to impede that current of things, nor prevent that solution, relatively near at hand, of the long rivalry of European races for the ultimate colonisation and domination of the universe. The world will not be ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild

... cause of Ireland. Even should some English employers discharge thousands of their Irish workmen, which is highly improbable, that is no reason why the Irish people should abandon the path of duty. If Ireland should attain her freedom, it will not be long necessary for Irish working people to be dependent on Englishmen, or other foreigners, for a livelihood. They will find enough to do at home, in developing the resources and winning back the lost industries of their country. Americans were not afraid to give up one ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... as he heard the sentence, replied: "Since you were predetermined to put me to death, you ought at least to have sought for more plausible pretexts to attain that end; for you will never persuade the world that you deem me guilty of what you now declare me to be convicted. However, since my lot is decided, I demand that you will not let me languish here until to-morrow, but order that I be led to ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott

... road:' those who, from the effects in this visible world, deduce the eternal power and Godhead of the First Cause, though they cannot attain to an adequate idea of the Deity, yet discover so much of him as enables them to see the end of their creation, and the means of their happiness; whereas they who take this high priori road (such as Hobbes, Spinoza, Descartes, and some better reasoners) ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope

... counsel. These inconveniences became more apparent after it had ceased to be the fashion for the Judges and the Bar to travel on horseback from one assize-town to another. Cowper, writing to his pedestrian friend Rose, playfully imagines that when he should attain to the dignity of the ermine, he would institute the practice of 'walking' the circuit. But equestrian circuits were long in use, and the Bar turned out as if their chase had been deer instead of John Doe ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne

... vessels, sloops vary in size, but none of them attain to great magnitude. As a class, they are the smallest decked vessels we have. From 40 to 100 tons burden is a very common size. A sloop of 40 tons burden is what we ordinarily call a little ship, and one of 100 tons is by no means a big ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne

... principle, he is less horse-like. But who shall decide which is more like a horse, the original or the latter development? No species which is constituted by its own history can be said to have an end in itself, and can, therefore, have an excellence to which it shall attain. In short, good and bad can be applied to the moments in a necessary evolution only by imputing a fictitious superiority to the last term; and so one type cannot logically be preferred to another. As for ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... moderation in resigning the nominal command to those whose military skill and high birth raised a riot into the dignity of rebellion, had given that consistency and method to the rising which popular movements never attain without aristocratic aid. ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... of 2004 forced the authorites to overturn a rigged presidential election and to allow a new internationally monitored vote that swept into power a reformist slate under Viktor YUSHCHENKO. The new government presents its citizens with hope that the country may at last attain true freedom and prosperity. ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... not fear the contrary, the utility of the discovery will be well proved, and the consequences will probably be as favourable to me as the CONCLUSION of the voyage might have been without it. I do indeed privately hope that, whether the voyage is or is not further prosecuted, I may attain another step; many circumstances are favourable to this, but the peace and the non-completion of the voyage are against it. To balance these, I must secure the interest of the India House, by means ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... express it, an unstable union; it is union that we have to maintain by daily spiritual action and which suffers many a weakening through our infidelity, even if it escape the disaster of mortal sin. We sway to and fro in our struggle to attain the equilibrium of perfection which belonged to Blessed Mary by virtue of the first embrace of God which had freed her from sin. Our tragedy is that we have almost universally lost the first engagements of the Spiritual Combat before we have at all understood that ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... embraced by a majority of our fellow-countrymen, who have already united around the glorious and sovereign banner of the United States. In this banner they repose their trust in the belief that under its protection our people will attain all the promised liberties which they are even now ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester

... God in no way resembles the human intellect, for we cannot conceive Him as proposing an end and considering the means to attain it. "The intellect of God, in so far as it is conceived to constitute His essence, is in truth the cause of things, both of their essence and of their existence—a truth which seems to have been understood by those who have maintained that God's intellect, will, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford

... the recommended distance either way is 40 feet, or 35 x 40 feet. Some varieties may go as close as 30 feet; and in regions (as parts of central and western North America) in which the trees are not expected to attain such great size as in the eastern country, the planting may be even less than this of the upright-growing kinds. The spaces between the trees may be utilized for a few years with other crops, even with other fruits, as peaches or berries. ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey

... and the energy of him merged in a wave of blessed tendency in this world, thankful if, in that which is to come, it was counted worthy to survive at all. It should be understood that Arnold did not hope to attain the simplicity of this by means equally simple. He held vastly, on the contrary, to fast days and flagellations, to the ministry of symbols, the use of rigours. The spiritual consummation which the eye of faith enabled him to anticipate upon the horizon of Bengal should be hastened, ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... that is essential to artisans, merchants, lawyers, or farmers. Learning should not be prized merely as an aid to the daily work of life,—though this it properly is and ever ought to be,—but for its expansive power in the mind and soul, by which we attain to a more perfect knowledge of things human and divine. There are many persons who accomplish satisfactorily the tasks assigned them, but who do not always comprehend the processes of life, in its political, social, literary, scientific and industrial relations, by which ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell

... the best English of their day with the care and slightly conservative tendency which befitted poets. Chaucer's service to the English language lies in his decisive success having made it impossible for any later English poet to attain fame, as Gower had done, by writing alternatively in Latin and French. The claim which should be made for him is that, at least as regards poetry, he proved ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... violoncello, played by the two Rombergs; and the closing piece was the symphony by Winneberger, which had very many brilliant passages. The opinion already expressed as to the performance of this orchestra was confirmed. It was not possible to attain a higher degree of exactness. Such perfection in the pianos, fortes, rinforzandos,—such a swelling and gradual increase of tone, and then such an almost imperceptible dying away, from the most powerful to the lightest accents,—all this was formerly to be heard only at Mannheim. It would be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... that she resolved at the early age of seven to start out in search of a martyr's crown. Prevailing upon her little brother to accompany her in this quest for celestial happiness, she started out for the country of the Moors, deeming that the surest way to attain the desired goal. While this childish enthusiasm was nipped in the bud by the timely intervention of an uncle, who met the two pilgrims trudging along the highway, the idea lost none of its fascination for a time; and the two children immediately began to play at ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... times, and they have laughed at me for my fables, as they have termed them. One of the chiefs told me to hold my tongue, that his people might not think me mad. The Scriptures, indeed, teach us that, without the aid of direct revelation, men are also without excuse if they fail to attain to a certain knowledge of the Deity,—'even his eternal power and God-head,'—by a devout contemplation of the visible world, which with all its wonders is spread out before them as an open volume. But beyond this, all knowledge of the origin or ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat



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