"Ambitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... apparently inconsistent characters, of her husband's mistress, and her own very obsequious and complaisant confidant. By this dexterous management the Queen secured her power against the danger which might most have threatened it—the thwarting influence of an ambitious rival; and if she submitted to the mortification of being obliged to connive at her husband's infidelity, she was at least guarded against what she might think its most dangerous effects, and was besides at liberty, now and then, to bestow ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... needed as an introduction to a work of far more ambitious character, than any which I have before attempted. In venturing to select a subject from the history of Rome, during its earlier ages, undeterred by the failure or, at the best, partial success of writers far more eminent than I can ever hope to become, I have been actuated by reasons, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... a conflict of physical and chemical forces, does not despair of one day obtaining artificially organisable matter—protoplasm, as the official jargon has it. If it were in my power I should hasten to satisfy this ambitious gentleman. ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... faith," he broke in, "you need a bold, ambitious soldier for your Governor. What think you, ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... perpetuated what he has seen with his own bodily eyes; and for that reason alone his unpretending little sketches may, perhaps, have more interest for those who come across them in another hundred years than many an ambitious historical or classical canvas that has cost its painter infinite labour, imagination, and research, and won for him in his own time the highest rewards in money, fame, and Academical distinction. For genius alone can keep such fancy-work as this alive, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... wife, to whom he communicated the strange prediction of the weird sisters, and its partial accomplishment. She was a bad, ambitious woman, and so as her husband and herself could arrive at greatness, she cared not much by what means. She spurred on the reluctant purpose of Macbeth, who felt compunction at the thoughts of blood, and did not cease to represent the murder of the king as a step absolutely necessary to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... not take place on Friday. No aspirants appeared at the gymnasium. The seniors were not ambitious to shine as basket-ball stars. The freshmen went to work at once to perfect their playing under the willing guidance of Professor Leonard. The soph team was not quite so zealous, but put in at least two afternoons a week at practice. This team was the pride ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... such as these, men are ordinarily governed by their habits or deluded by their wishes. A few, led by the phantoms of hope, and ambitious of sudden affluence, sought the mines of the virgin territory; but by far the greater portion of the emigrants were satisfied to establish themselves along the margins of the larger water-courses, content with the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... now, gravely, the gaze of the entire company, entering together, sitting together by the fire, watching with serious eyes the clumsy efforts of an unhappily ambitious Freshman to make clear his opinions of the Navy, the Government and the British Islands generally—only, ultimately, producing a tittering, stammering apology for having burdened so long with his hapless clamour, ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... that on the first Monday in the following November Jack Dudley and Fred Greenwood were in their respective seats at school, as eager and ambitious to press their studies as they had been to visit Bowman's ranch, in Southwestern Wyoming, in which ranch, by the way, they advised Mr. Dudley ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... come back to marry her first-love, a foundry worker: after having kept him dangling, off and on, for a dozen years. Why had she come back? Did she love him? No. She didn't pretend to. She had loved her brilliant and ambitious cousin, who had jilted her, and who had died. She had had other affairs which had come to nothing. So here she was, come back suddenly to marry her first-love, who had waited—or remained single—all ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... hadn't been so ambitious," Philip assured her with mild resentment, "you'd have seen me at breakfast. I arrived at Sherrill's last night. As it is, I've been sitting here an hour or so watching you swap wildwood yarns with the aborigine yonder. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... are, and always have been, a military People, a nation of soldiers and adventurers, led by kings, heroes, ambitious men, from battle-field to battle-field, making conquests and not keeping them, ravaging, dazzling, charming, and corrupting Europe, and bearing the manners, vices, bravado, lightness, and impiety of the camp into the ...
— Atheism Among the People • Alphonse de Lamartine
... and commanding character, and was ill-satisfied with her position and prospect in Charlemont. A quiet, obscure village, such as that we have described, held forth no promise for a spirit so proud, impatient, and ambitious as hers. She knew the whole extent of knowledge which it contained, and all its acquisitions and resources—she had sounded its depths, and traced all its shallows. The young women kept no pace with her own progress—they were ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... influence that the language and policy of the government should be as moderate and guarded as possible, from the consideration that both England and France were profoundly impressed with the idea that we were an ambitious, encroaching people, Mr. Adams replied: "I doubt if we should give ourselves any concern about it. Great Britain, who had been vilifying us for twenty years as a low-minded nation, with no generous ambition, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... his boys a wholesome example to respect their mother. People who knew him very well suspected that he even admired her. He was a hard man towards his neighbors, and even towards his sons; grasping, determined and ambitious. ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... borders of the wood, near the edge of the little town, we called a counsel of two. As the outcome of it, we concluded that, having in mind the "King's" ambitious plans for our cloth-of-gold future, and for other obvious reasons, it was better that she went into the town alone—I to await her in the shadow ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... married him; but at that time her husband was living. By the time M. Merle had rejoined—I won't say his ancestors, because he never had any—her relations with Osmond had changed, and she had grown more ambitious. Besides, she has never had, about him," the Countess went on, leaving Isabel to wince for it so tragically afterwards—"she HAD never had, what you might call any illusions of INTELLIGENCE. She hoped she ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... centralization which shall recognize the United States as the supreme political power of the land, which shall no longer allow the political rights of citizens of the United States to be the plaything of thirty-seven petty legislatures, of thirty thousand ambitious demagogues. Without this, our National experiment is a failure; without this, we are not freemen, but slaves; without this, we are neither protected nor self-protecting; without this, centralized State power, under the specious name of "State rights," will ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... finest of the wool is left for you; 170 Spare me but one small portion of the twine, And let the sisters cut below your line: The rest among the rubbish may they sweep, Or add it to the yarn of some old miser's heap. But, if you this ambitious prayer deny, (A wish, I grant, beyond mortality,) Then let me sink beneath proud Arcite's arms, And I once dead, let him ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... was also ambitious in alchemy, and, since Seton was beyond his reach, he took the next best step and married his widow. From her, as the story goes, he received an ounce of black powder—the veritable philosopher's stone. With this he manufactured great quantities of gold, even inviting Emperor ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... talk to me in this way, urge me to be ambitious, and yet confess that you could give yourself to one of those drones of whom you speak ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... that it seemed to me that what I desired was never to come to pass. To all this Don Fernando answered that he would take it upon himself to speak to my father, and persuade him to speak to Luscinda's father. O, ambitious Marius! O, cruel Catiline! O, wicked Sylla! O, perfidious Ganelon! O, treacherous Vellido! O, vindictive Julian! O, covetous Judas! Traitor, cruel, vindictive, and perfidious, wherein had this poor wretch failed ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... came home,—having seen mademoiselle. He told Clement much of the story relating to Madame Babette that I have told to you. Of course, he had heard nothing of the ambitious hopes of Morin Fils,—hardly of his existence, I should think. Madame Babette had received him kindly; although, for some time, she had kept him standing in the carriage gateway outside her door. ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... yet, Miss Mary Virginia, but he's got to be somebody or other. There's been lots after me, since it got out I'm such a grand cook and save my wages. But I've got a sort of taste for Daddy January. He's old, but he's lively. He's a real ambitious old man like that. Besides, I'm sure of his family,—I always did like Judge Mayne and Mister Laurence, and I do like 'ristocratic connections, Miss Mary Virginia. That big nigger that drives one of the mill trucks had the impudence to tell me he'd ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... people with lies, with sophistries, with cruel deceits and slanders, to fight for secret objects which they abhorred, and against interests as dear to them as their own lives, I charge the whole guilt of this war upon the ambitious, educated, plotting, political leaders of the South. They have shed this ocean of blood. They have desolated the South. They have poured poverty through all her towns and cities. They have bewildered the imagination of the people with phantasms, and led them ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... high-priest, the seventh prince of Abbas' royal seed! The hearts of all the folk are filled with reverence for thee, And thou, with meek and humble heart, dost keep them all and lead. Error-deluded as I was, against thee I rebelled, Intent on covetise alone and base ambitious greed; Yet hast thou pardon giv'n to one, the like of whom before Was never pardoned, though for him no one with thee did plead, And on a mother's bleeding heart hadst ruth and little ones, Like to the desert-grouse's young, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... should proceed on a flat denial of ethical principles. Later on will come revivals and restorations, political, ethical and religious, and each time we shall see the rising stratum attaching to itself strays and converts, above all, the disappointed and ambitious, from ...
— The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... appreciation of the dancing-master's services, by purchasing themselves, and inducing their friends to do the like, divers light-blue tickets, entitling them to join the expedition. Of these light-blue tickets, one had been presented by an ambitious neighbour to Miss Morleena Kenwigs, with an invitation to join her daughters; and Mrs Kenwigs, rightly deeming that the honour of the family was involved in Miss Morleena's making the most splendid appearance possible on so short ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... admitted; since the universal consciousness is that of freedom to choose. But there is a larger reason. In accordance with his general notions, personality must be degraded, denuded, impoverished,—that so the individual may lie passive in the arms of that society whose laws he is ambitious to expound. Having robbed the soul of choice, he now deprives it of sight; having denied that it is an originating source of will, he now makes the complementary denial, that it is a like source of knowledge; having first made it helpless, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to get ambitious. He gave all his money to his mother. When he earned fourteen shillings a week, she gave him back two for himself, and, as he never drank, he felt himself rich. He went about with the bourgeois of Bestwood. The townlet contained nothing higher than the clergyman. Then came the bank manager, ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... he gave of Lily's ignorance of ethical standards made Mary Houghton cringe. "She's ruining the little fellow," he said; "he's not mean nor a coward—I'll say that for him! But he lies whenever he feels like it, and honesty only means not getting 'pinched.' She's awfully ambitious for him; but her idea of success is what she calls 'Society,' Oh, it's such a relief to speak to you, Mrs. Houghton! I haven't a soul ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... right of outward power to regulate its internal affairs. To do so, in any way, is fraught with mischief; but to do so as a political party, is infinitely more pernicious. It leaves a great metropolis, on which the welfare of the commercial business of the nation mainly depends, a foot-ball for ambitious or selfish politicians to play with. But as there are exceptions to all rules, so there may be to this— still they should always be exceptions, and not ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... Plot was of an early date, and began indeed almost at the restoration of the king. The monarch of France and the Duke of York were his accomplices. Coleman's part in it seems to have been merely that of an ambitious, intriguing, bigotted partizan, pleased with being entrusted with the secrets of the great; and much disposed to magnify the importance and value of his services. His letters, that were produced on his trial, related to the years 1674 and '5. If there ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... groups represented by far the most ambitious work done by the sculpture department. From designs by Calder, they were made by three sculptors, Calder, Roth and Lentelli. They presented problems that must have been both difficult and interesting to work out. First, they had to balance each other. What ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... governess. "They're not going to examine me this time of night, are they, Leechy?" For she suffered greatly from having a brother who was always passing examinations and coming out top, and was consequently subjected herself, by an ambitious mother who was sure that she must be equally clever if she would only let herself go, to every examination that happened to be going for girls of her age; so that she and Miss Leech spent their days either on the defensive, preparing for these unprovoked ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
... Campions, Beaupuis, and others, succeeded in making their escape from France. The Marquis of Chateauneuf, governor of Touraine, was ordered back to his province. La Chatres, colonel general, was dismissed from his post; the Duc de Vendome was forced to leave France; and the ambitious Bishop of Beauvais and several other prelates were commanded to return to their dioceses. All the members of the Vendome family were exiled to the chateau of Annette. Madame de Chevreuse, de Hautefort, and a large number of other members of the party were ordered to leave ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... who are ambitious of scientific distinction, may, according to their fancy, render their name a kind of comet, carrying with it a tail of upwards of forty letters, at the average cost of 10L. 9s. ...
— Decline of Science in England • Charles Babbage
... which Europe has embellished her fair but palpitating bosom; and may disappointment and dishonour be the lot of that ambitious and impolitic being who endeavours or who wishes to pluck it ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... wait until Peru ceases to be in a disturbed state, Harry, you may wait another hundred years. The Spanish rule was bad, but Peru was then a pleasant place to live in compared with what it is now. It is a sort of cock-pit, where a succession of ambitious rascals struggle for the spoils, and the moment one gets the better of his rivals fresh intrigues are set on foot, and fresh rebellions break out. There are good Peruvians—men who have estates and live upon them, ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... was popular and at first not unattractive. Robust, fond of display, ambitious, intelligent enough to dabble in letters and art, he piqued himself on being chivalrous and brave. But he wasted his life and ruined his health in the pursuit of pleasure. His face, as it has come down to us in contemporary paintings, is disagreeable. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... physical, cannot be appreciated in any other way than by appearances. The result is that the man who does not want to lay himself open to persecution, and who happens to be superior or inferior to the others, must endeavour to conceal it by all possible means. If he is ambitious, he must feign great contempt for dignities; if he seeks employment, he must not appear to want any; if his features are handsome, he must be careless of his physical appearance; he must dress badly, wear nothing in good taste, ridicule every foreign importation, make his bow without ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... to them. Interrogate now the three natures, and each one will be found praising his own pleasures and depreciating those of others. The money-maker will contrast the vanity of knowledge with the solid advantages of wealth. The ambitious man will despise knowledge which brings no honour; whereas the philosopher will regard only the fruition of truth, and will call other pleasures necessary rather than good. Now, how shall we decide between them? Is there any better criterion than experience and knowledge? And which ...
— The Republic • Plato
... the Castle of York, to which Prince John had invited those nobles, prelates, and leaders, by whose assistance he hoped to carry through his ambitious projects upon his brother's throne. Waldemar Fitzurse, his able and politic agent, was at secret work among them, tempering all to that pitch of courage which was necessary in making an open declaration of their purpose. But their enterprise ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Sebastian had always been ambitious, and his changed circumstances made him realise more clearly than ever that his merit was worthy of a brilliant arena. The times were propitious, for the old king had just died, and the new one had sent away the army of priests and monks which had turned ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... very ambitious, sir,' said I, 'and very much of a hero! Mine is a humbler, and, I would fain think, a more human dog. He is one with no particular trust in himself, with no superior steadfastness to be admired for, who sees a lady's face, who hears her voice, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now very desirous of procuring a situation. He felt that it was time he was doing something for himself. He was ambitious to relieve the kind sexton and his wife of some portion, at least, of the burden ...
— Paul Prescott's Charge • Horatio Alger
... detestable, and the most inexcusable; for its mischiefs are by far the most extensive, and its enjoyments by no means proportioned to its anxieties. The latter, I believe, is the case of most passions—but then all but ambition cost little pain to any but the possessor. An ambitious man must be divested of all feeling but for himself. The torment of others is his high-road to happiness. Were the transmigration of souls true, and accompanied by consciousness, how delighted would Alexander or Croesus be to find themselves ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... so confidently spoken, did much to allay Louise's fears. Uneventfully the days slipped by, and with every one that passed the boy and girl breathed more freely. Not only were they skilled workers but they were earnest and ambitious to give of their best. Moreover they had behind them an untarnished record for faithful attendance at the mills. Such service, argued they, must be of value, and when matched against much of the grudging, incompetent labor about them should be of sufficient worth to keep ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... with less anxiety your beating, ambitious heart panted for the admiration of an attentive auditory, when you first ventured to harangue in public! With far less hope and fear (great as yours were) did you first address a crowded court, and thirst for its approbation on your efforts, than Agnes sighed for your approbation ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald
... why, as Professor Wilder asks, the secrecy? What more can the secret society do for the intellectual or social training of the student than the open society? Has any secret society in an American college done, or can it do, more for the intelligent and ambitious young man than the Union Debating Society at the English Cambridge University, or the similar club at Oxford? There Macaulay, Gladstone, the Austins, Charles Buller, Tooke, Ellis, and the long illustrious list of noted and ...
— Ars Recte Vivende - Being Essays Contributed to "The Easy Chair" • George William Curtis
... vast kingdom, or looks forward to the support which a mercantile navy may give to a warlike one, we must not sleep on our posts. The life of any individual is brief on a national scale; and his successor, whether regent or republican, may be as hot-headed, rash, and ambitious, as this great monarch has shown himself rational, prudent, and peaceful. We must prepare for all chances; and our true preparation must be, a fleet that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... were the legitimate offspring of the Devil and Dr. Faustus, plays his own pious game at winning souls, and risks—charity. The griping money-catcher, who shudders at the thought of losing gold in spendthrift play, takes his own close and cunning game at winning wealth, and risks—esteem. The ambitious aspirant, who scorns such empty things as cards, plays boldly at his daring game at winning position, and risks—honor. The bright-eyed girl throws heart and soul into the enchanting game of love, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... the club manager might sign a team of costly star players and yet find himself surpassed in the pennant race by a rival manager, who, with entire control of his team, and that team composed of so-called "second-class players" or ambitious "colts," working in thorough harmony together, and "playing for the side" all the time and not for a record, as so many of the star players do, would deservedly ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... reputation for poetic genius, while unable to disguise from himself that he had taken no means whereby he might become a poet, could fancy himself a born one. Those who would reap without sowing, and gain the victory without fighting the battle, are ambitious now of another sort of distinction, and are born novelists, or public speakers, not poets. And the wiser thinkers understand and acknowledge that poetic excellence is subject to the same necessary conditions with any other ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... door, stretching himself full length upon it, and closing his eyes, composed himself to sleep. His face in repose was a remarkably handsome one,—a little hard in outline, but strong, nobly featured and expressive of power,—an ambitious sculptor would have rejoiced in him as a model for Achilles. He was as unlike the modern hideous type of man as he could well be,—and most particularly unlike any specimen of American that could be found on the whole huge continent. In truth he was purely and essentially ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... the wish of my adopted parents," he said to himself, "the rest does not signify. I ought to be willing to work for them in the sphere and condition where their devotion has placed me. If I have sometimes felt ambitious to take a higher position in the world, was it not that I might be able to assist them? Since it makes them happy to have me with them, and as they desire nothing better than their present life, I must try to be contented, and endeavor by good conduct and hard work to give ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... games, in emulation of Hercules, being ambitious that as the Greeks, by that hero's appointment, celebrated the Olympian games to the honor of Jupiter, so, by his institution, they should celebrate the Isthmian to the honor of Neptune. For those that were there before observed, dedicated to Melicerta, were performed privately in the night, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... he could not conquer the whole world, and, second, because there were no others that he could conquer. He was a vast genius, almost humorous in his ambitious discontent sometimes—especially when he looked at the stars and said, as alleged, that he was ashamed to look at all those other worlds when he had barely conquered this one little ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... grandfather Bhishma and the other bull of Kuru's race, regarding indignation at such a sinful act to be virtuous, may become wrathful. If however, from fear of being burnt, we fly from here, Duryodhana, ambitious of sovereignty will certainly compass our death by means of spies. While we have no rank and power, Duryodhana hath both; while we have no friends and allies, Duryodhana hath both; while we are without wealth, Duryodhana hath ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... gathered unto himself sufficient influence of divers nature as, in his opinion, to ensure him the See in case the bishopric should, as was contemplated, be raised eventually to the status of a Metropolitan. It was he, rather than the Bishop, who distributed parishes to ambitious pastors and emoluments to greedy politicians. His irons in ecclesiastical, political, social and commercial fires were innumerable. The doctrine of the indivisibility of Church and State had in him an able champion—but only because he thereby found a sure means of increasing ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... Madrid it made a stir at the time. He jilted a school friend of Pilarcita's. That is almost an unheard-of thing in Spain; but he did it. The young girl's family got into trouble at Court—an insignificant affair; but the Duke is ambitious of favour. He had something to retrieve, after the scandal during the Spanish-American War, when he was quite a young ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... through in the dawn, spectral, artistically perfect, aiming at ambitious, distant objectives, Northamptonshire Yeomanry who had come from France to Italy a year ago and had been kept behind the lines all through the war and were having their first show at last. The next day they suffered many casualties, but they did fine work. Their reconnaissance officer came into the ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... with him, to a couch harder than he was accustomed to stretch himself upon, the same ambitious thoughts and political perplexities which drive sleep from the softest down that ever spread a bed of state. He had sailed long enough amid the contending tides and currents of the time to be sensible of their peril, and of the necessity of trimming ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... contented y^t such of y^e surviving Pequents as had submited to him should remaine with him and quietly under his protection. This did much increase his power and augmente his greatnes, which y^e Narigansets could not indure to see. But Myantinomo, their cheefe sachem, (an ambitious & politick man,) sought privatly and by trearchery (according to y^e Indean maner) to make him away, by hiring some to kill him. Sometime they assayed to poyson him; that not takeing, then in y^e night time to knock him on y^e head in his house, or secretly to shoot him, and such like ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... thou carry to thy father the welcome tidings that in unmanly fashion I despair? Go. Tell him that he deceives neither the world nor me. At first it will be whispered cautiously behind his back, then spoken more and more loudly, and when at some future day the ambitious man descends from his proud eminence, a thousand voices will proclaim—that 'twas not the welfare of the state, not the honour of the king, not the tranquillity of the provinces, that brought him hither. ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... corps complain of this sometimes, as they say that they seldom get a chance of detached service, which falls to the lot of Ewell. It is impossible to please Longstreet more than by praising Lee. I believe these two Generals to be as little ambitious and as thoroughly unselfish as any men in the world. Both long for a successful termination of the war, in order that they may retire into obscurity. Stonewall Jackson (until his death the third in command of their army) was just such another simple-minded servant of his country. It is ...
— Three Months in the Southern States, April-June 1863 • Arthur J. L. (Lieut.-Col.) Fremantle
... entirely satisfactory to Custer. Being employed by the town gave him an official standing, perhaps not so distinguished as that of a policeman, but still eminently worth while; and Mr. Shrimplin added not a little to the sense of its importance by dilating on the intrigues of ambitious rivals who desired to wrest his contract from him; and he impressed Custer, who frequently accompanied him on his rounds, with the wisdom of keeping the lamps that shone upon the homes of members of the town council in especially good order. ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... name is chosen king of England by a generall consent, ambassadours are sent to attend him homewardes to his kingdome, and to informe him of his election, William duke of Normandie accompanieth him, Edward is crowned king, the subtill ambition or ambitious subtiltie of earle Goodwine in preferring Edward to the crowne and betraieng Alfred; the Danes expelled and rid out of this land by decree; whether earle Goodwine was guiltie of Alfreds death, king Edward marieth the said earles daughter, ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (8 of 8) - The Eight Booke of the Historie of England • Raphael Holinshed
... reposed in none except those who are fitted morally and mentally to administer it well; for if conferred upon persons who do not justly estimate its value and who are indifferent as to its results, it will only serve as a means of placing power in the hands of the unprincipled and ambitious, and must eventuate in the complete destruction of that liberty of which it should be the most powerful conservator. I have therefore heretofore urged upon your attention the great danger—to be apprehended ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Johnson • Andrew Johnson
... Her ambitious plans for her city forgotten, Dido wandered through the streets, mad with love and unable to conceal her passion. She led AEneas among the walls and towers, made feasts for him, and begged again and again to hear the story of his wandering. At other times she fondled Ascanius, ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... to keep off many an ambitious millionaire, many an aged nabob, who might like to compete with the kings of the Sandwich, the Marquesas, and the other ...
— Godfrey Morgan - A Californian Mystery • Jules Verne
... backbone of the economy. Algeria depends on hydrocarbons for nearly all of its export receipts, about 30% of government revenues, and nearly 25% of GDP. In 1973-74 the sharp increase in oil prices led to a booming economy that helped to finance an ambitious program of industrialization. Plunging oil and gas prices, combined with the mismanagement of Algeria's highly centralized economy, have brought the nation to its most serious social and economic crisis since independence. The government has ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... necessary and appropriate to the situation in which he was placed, but by no means to encourage expensive habits, or desires which might unfit him for the first laborious steps which he was destined to tread in the path of life. He felt, indeed, that there was an ambitious spirit in his own heart, and it cost him many a struggle in thought, to regulate its action: to guide it in the course of all that was good and right, but resolutely to restrain it from following any other path. ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... connection with such a circumstance, that Seton received his education in France, and passed a considerable part of his life there. Whether from such an example or not, the Aberdeenshire lairds seem to have been all ambitious of possessing French chateaux; and thus in the county of primitive rock, where there is certainly little else to remind us of French habits or ideas, we have some admirable specimens of that foreign architectural school in Castle Fraser, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... else try them first," said the lady. "I do not feel disposed to be made ill to try whether this or that is good for food. I am not ambitious." ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... having pinned up her skirts, went out with the children and the nurse to pick flowers in a neighboring field, the druggist, who was less ambitious, treated the saloon-keeping cousin to a glass of vermouth, seated at the billiard-table, which was covered with dead flies. They breakfasted under a vineless arbor, which the hot noonday sun riddled ...
— Ten Tales • Francois Coppee
... all, I was only fifteen, and so had a year before me in which to prepare for the examinations. Woloda now came downstairs for luncheon only, and spent whole days and evenings over his studies in his own room—to which he kept, not from necessity, but because he preferred its seclusion. He was very ambitious, and meant to pass the examinations, not by ...
— Boyhood • Leo Tolstoy
... Alberoni, unscrupulous and ambitious, stopped at nothing in order to consolidate his power and pave the way for his future greatness. Having become prime minister, he kept the King as completely inaccessible to the courtiers as to the world; would allow no one to approach him whose influence he had in any way feared. He had Philip ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... think, especially the women who write, while a Cat, victim of English perfidy, is interested to say more than she thinks, and her profuseness may serve to compensate for what these ladies do not say. I am ambitious to be the Mrs. Inchbald of Cats and I beg you to have consideration for my noble efforts, O! French Cats, among whom has risen the noblest house of our race, that of Puss in Boots, eternal type of Advertiser, whom so many men have imitated ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... intentions of the Supreme Director of Chili as declared in his proclamations. It now became evident to me that the army had been kept inert for the purpose of preserving it entire to further the ambitious views of the General, and that with the whole force now at Lima the inhabitants were completely at the mercy of their pretended liberator, ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... less ambitious figure; as figures are, once for all, natural to him: "Has not thy Life been that of most sufficient men (tuchtigen Manner) thou hast known in this generation? An outflush of foolish young Enthusiasm, like the first fallow-crop, wherein are as many weeds as valuable herbs: ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... had served under a stranger, as second on his own soil. In the other two he was fettered by the terms of "cessation" to his own quarters; and to add to his embarrassments, his impetuous kinsman Sir Phelim, brave, rash, and ambitious, recently married to a daughter of his ungenerous rival, General Preston, was incited to thwart and obstruct him amongst their mutual clansmen and connections. The only recompense which seems to have ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... opportunity to express in "familiar and dramatic form" of story and illustration his more substantial philosophy and so find for it the perfect speech. His neighbors called him by homely, affectionate names, thinking he was entirely one of them—a little more clever, a little less ambitious in the usual channels of business and enterprise. He had no "moral strenuousness of the reformer" and no "exclusiveness" of learning. He "accepted the fabric of traditional American political thought." He seemed "but the average product," and yet, as this ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... further the pages of my Memoirs. Many pens have been occupied, and will be occupied, with this subject. It is not the apostleship of Jesus Christ that is in question, but that of the reverend fathers and their ambitious clients. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... not have to assume an interest. This spare little man was small only in physique. He was an object of interest to any and every ambitious young lawyer. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... seen tempests, when the scolding winds Have riv'd the knotty oaks; and I have seen The ambitious ocean swell and rage and foam, To be exalted with the threat'ning clouds: But never till to-night, never till now Did I go through a tempest ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... Scott, but, the devisee having married again and had issue, the will was abrogated. The wife of Winfield Mason was the daughter of Dr. James Greenway, a near neighbor. He was born in England, near the borders of Scotland, and inherited his father's trade, that of a weaver. He was ambitious and studious, and giving all of his spare time to study, he became familiar with the Greek, Latin, French, and Italian languages. After his immigration to Virginia he prepared himself for the practice of medicine, and soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. He devoted ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... the Commander-in-Chief and his staff were busy with preparations for a battle, in conjunction with the French, which had ambitious objects. These have never been stated because they were not gained (and it was the habit of our High Command to conceal its objectives and minimize their importance if their hopes were unfulfilled), but beyond doubt the purpose of the battle was to gain possession of Lens ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... Etienne Lousteau sorry that he had opened the gate of the temple to a newcomer? Even now he (Lucien) felt on his own account that it was strongly advisable to put difficulties in the way of eager and ambitious recruits from the provinces. If a poet should come to him as he had flung himself into Etienne's arms, he dared not think of the reception that he would ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... Ortega has no great sympathy for my manner of living, which is insubordinate; it may be that I look with unfriendly eye upon his ambitious and aristocratic sympathies; nevertheless, he is a master who brings glad news of the unknown—that is, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... was a large, handsome woman, fond of much company, ambitious for distinction in society and devoted, according to her definitions of success, to the success of her children. Her youngest boy, Louis, two years younger than Rachel, was ready to graduate from a military academy ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... to be kindly remembered for his good taste. The house stands upon the pretty terrace commanding the plain of Washington. From the upper windows we can see the Potomac opening southward like a lake, and between us and the water ambitious Washington stretching itself along and along, like the shackly files of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... Saskatchewan River, revered for his gifts, feared for his power, and always approached with something of reluctance by the Indians, who firmly believed the spirit of the gods to dwell within him. He was an austere and taciturn man, difficult of access, and as vain and ambitious as he was haughty and contemptuous. Those who professed to have witnessed the scene told of a trial of power between this man—the Black Snake, as he was called—and a renowned medicine-man of a neighboring tribe. The contest, from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... that he counselled kings to administer their government with equal regard to the little and the great, the poor and the rich, the powerful and the miserable; for this the Catholic Church has always done, and has held a lofty theory before earthly thrones, not-withstanding its own ambitious derelictions. But Las Casas tells the Supreme Council of the Indies that no charge, no servitude, no labor can be imposed upon a people without its previous and voluntary consent; for man shares, by his origin, in the common liberty of all beings, so that every subordination of men to princes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... is very ambitious," the governess replied: "and her son has a fortune of his own. She may wish him to marry a lady of high rank. But—no—she is always in need of money. In some way, money may be concerned ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... ambitious design, the monarch robbed the Temple of the Sun at Baalbek of columns of porphyry, despoiled the Temple of Diana of Ephesus of its finest pillars, took columns of pure white marble from the Temple of Minerva at Athens, ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... his martial subjects who had long chafed under the rule of such a sovereign, and his cousin, the warlike Gelimer, ascended the throne. The deposition of Hilderic, followed for the present not by his death but by his close imprisonment, furnished the ambitious Justinian with a fair pretext for war, since Hilderic was not only the ally of the Empire, and a Catholic, but was descended on his mother's side from the great Theodosius and related to many of the Byzantine nobility. In spite of the opposition ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... three voyagers stood in silence gazing through the window at the famous pole. This, then, was the goal of so much heroic endeavor! It was to reach this complete opposite of all that is ordinarily attractive that countless ambitious men had ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... of course, particularly provident. I was told, however, that they are beginning to be ambitious to increase their little herds of horses and cattle and their numbers ...
— The Seminole Indians of Florida • Clay MacCauley
... at Antofagasta, and was fortunate enough to get on board one of the Pacific Mail Line steamers the next morning on my way to Valparaiso. We were now in the height of civilization again—very hot, very uncomfortable, very ambitious, very dirty, the hotels abominable. Had it not been for the kindness of friends I should have fared badly indeed in Valparaiso, for the place was invaded by a swarm of American tourists, who had just landed from an excursion steamer ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... at my pleasure, though envied by several, abasing whom I thought fit, and preferring others at my will. But, prompted by youthful pride, I began even to be wearied of this place, in which I was advanced so far beyond my birth; and, with an inconstant and over-ambitious mind, I vehemently aspired, on all occasions, to climb ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... and at all of the drills of the Life Saving Crew on the beach made Baldy feel that these social diversions were only an outlet for abundant vitality, since there were not fires and wrecks enough to keep him busy; and a poor little fox terrier, no matter how ambitious, is debarred by his size from the noble sport of racing, or the more ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... and looked about him querulously, still wrinkling his nose and snarling defiantly. He had the whole world beaten. He knew that. Everything was afraid of his mother. Everything was afraid of HIM. It was disgusting—this lack of something alive for an ambitious young fellow to fight. After all, the world was ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood |
