"Ambition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... adaptation of means to an end; endeavor refers to the exertions by which it is to be attained. One whose aims are worthy, whose aspirations are high, whose designs are wise, and whose purposes are steadfast, may hope to reach the goal of his ambition, and will surely win some object worthy of a life's ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... guests arrive. They are not obliged to choose between washing their own dishes, or having their cut glass, silver, and china left to the mercy of a foreigner, who has never done any thing but field work. And last, not least, they are not possessed with that ambition to do the impossible in all branches, which, I believe, is the death of a third of the women in America. What is there ever read of in books, or described in foreign travel, as attained by people in possession of every means and appliance, which our women will not undertake, single-handed, in ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... necessary to produce a good catcher, and if a person has any ambition to play the position, he should first examine himself to see whether he is the possessor of these. Here again the size of the candidate seems not to be of vital importance, for there are good catchers, from the little, sawed-off bantam, Hofford, ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... and Scott's brave, metropolitan utterance will be all equally the ghosts of speech. Till then I would love to have my hour as a native Maker, and be read by my own countryfolk in our own dying language: an ambition surely rather of the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect of endurance, so parochial ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too far, even for a friend of Essex. To grant such a request might have got the College into trouble with the influential Warwickshire family of Arden, and so it was refused; but the grant was "recognized," and Shakespeare's peculiar ambition ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... new ship, and superintended her fitting for sea. On 26th October he found himself transferred to the Stirling Castle, and it is only reasonable to suppose that, having formed a high opinion of Cook's work, and knowing of his ambition to rise in the service, he would give information of the opportunity and, as far as he could, push forward his friend's interests. At any rate, the Muster Rolls show that in less than six weeks from leaving ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... see, ambition! Ambition is a very pretty thing; but, sir, we must walk before we run, according to the old saying—what is that you have got ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Bosvils, was a tinker by profession; but, though a tinker, he was amazingly proud and haughty of heart. His grand ambition was to be a great man among his people, a Gypsy King. To this end he furnished himself with clothes made after the costliest Gypsy fashion: the two hinder buttons of the coat, which was of thick blue cloth, were broad gold pieces of Spain, generally called ounces; the fore-buttons were ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... the education of youth should be made a mere channel of social ascent. He had no desires of that sort. He had reached the stage in a young man's life when the grimness of the general human situation first becomes clear; and the realization of this causes ambition to halt awhile. In France it is not uncustomary to commit suicide at this stage; in England we do much better, or much worse, as ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... have listened to too many sad stories from heart-broken wives and mothers not to know that the demand which the women of the land make in this matter comes not from love of power, is not prompted by false ambition, springs not from unwomanly aspirations, but does come from a direful need of self-protection and an earnest desire to protect those ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... tombs. But the creative or foundational war is that in which the natural restlessness and love of contest among men are disciplined, by consent, into modes of beautiful—though it may be fatal—play: in which the natural ambition and love of power of men are disciplined into the aggressive conquest of surrounding evil: and in which the natural instincts of self-defence are sanctified by the nobleness of the institutions, and purity of ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The historians tell us with naive assurance that its causes were the wrongs inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the mistakes of the diplomatists, and ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... her dreams of childhood, never straying, never faltering, Still had needed Philip's image to make future life complete; Philip's young hopes of ambition, ever changing, ever altering, Needed Mildred's gentle presence even to ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter
... and my ambition were wrecked at a blow. The notion of returning for another three years to China, where all was now peaceful and stale to me, the excitement of the war at an end, every port reminding me of my old comrades, visions ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... occasion, when a foreign fleet was in our waters, he undertook the errand of your fathers, and performed it with unequalled success. It was in the service of your fathers that he won his great reputation as a lawyer; and to them and to you, disregarding the obvious dictates of personal interest and ambition, he clung for almost two-thirds of a century, as to his friends and neighbors, and to your city as the abode of his brilliant manhood, and the home of his declining years; and he has left his children and grandchildren, those dear ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... pedestal. A steep acclivity, like that of a rugged mountain, carries the eye to its summit, which looks down on the opposite side to a descent nearly perpendicular. The figure of the hero is on horseback, supposed to have attained the object of his ambition, by surmounting all the apparent impossibilities which so arduous an enterprise presented. The victorious animal is proudly rearing on the highest point of the rock, whilst his imperial master stretches ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 487 - Vol. 17, No. 487. Saturday, April 30, 1831 • Various
... Carrados. "Do you know, Louis, I always had a secret ambition to be a detective myself. I have even thought lately that I might still be able to do something at it if the chance came my way. That ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... own part, our ambition never inclined to the adventurous task of exploring the bush, content with the subordinate part of trusting to the superior sagacity of the more experienced; and often have our wonder and admiration been excited by the unerring judgment of our guide, when there was neither sun ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... likely to produce a dividend, because its name was against it. Cut out "Imperialism"; substitute another word, with just as many syllables and no less an imposing sound, "Proletariat"; call the thing "Class Warfare"; advertise it thoroughly and attract to it all the political egoists of disappointed ambition in the various countries of the enemy, and the German War Lords would find it no longer necessary to crush all existing nations, since all existing nations would then ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... was Kokai. He was twenty-six feet high. His body was entirely covered with hair, and his face was as black as iron. He was a wizard and a very terrible character indeed. When the Emperor Fuki died, Kokai was bitten with the ambition to be Emperor of China, but his plan failed, and Jokwa, the dead Emperor's sister, mounted the throne. Kokai was so angry at being thwarted in his desire that he raised a revolt. His first act was to employ the Water Devil, who caused ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... tenor of life went on for her as for others. After the first shock of parting was over, things went back to their accustomed routine. In one respect, however, there was a marked difference. So long as home conditions had remained unchanged, Lilla was content to put ambition far from her, and to settle down to the life which had been hers as long as she could remember. But Mimi's marriage set her thinking; naturally, she came to the conclusion that she too might have a mate. ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... of Europe. It remains now, not to destroy it, but, while maintaining it, to labor peacefully, in every nation protected by it, for the equilibrium of economical forces. The last line of the book, evidently written to check imperial ambition, is: "Humanity wants no ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Yet how many hundreds were daily falling at that time in warfare—how many thousands and tens of thousands were yet to fall, to gratify the insane ambition of a single man, permitted to be the fearful scourge that he was to the human race? We said as little about our expedition as we could, for the emigrants, as soon as they heard of so many of their countrymen being ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... perform well the duties of captain when the responsibility falls upon him, should be the constant study and ambition of the lieutenant. ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... spoiled mankind. Oh, yes, machinery has made me rich! It has given the proletariat the privilege of wearing yellow diamonds and riding about in flivvers. That must be admitted. But to have lived in those days when ambition thought only in beauty! To have been the boon companions of men like Da Vinci, Cellini, Michelangelo! Then there are the adventures of this concrete dream of the artist. I can trace it back to the bare studio in which it ...
— The Pagan Madonna • Harold MacGrath
... Montaiglon were announced she could have cried aloud with joy. It was not hard in that moment of her elation to understand why once the Chamberlain had loved her; beside the man to whom her own mad young ambition manacled her she seemed a vision of beauty none the worse for being ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... person. At first Ludovica had submitted to this strange conduct on the part of her husband with proud indifference, and not the slightest murmur, not the mildest reproach, had escaped her lips. For it was not from love that she had chosen this husband, but from ambition and pride. She had told herself that it would be better for her to be Empress of Austria than Princess of Modena and Este; and even the prospect of being the third wife of Francis of Austria, and the stepmother of the ten children whom his second wife had borne to him, had ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... idea of their adaptability in the way of pies, sauce or cider, but because she wanted to "be as gods knowing good and evil," as the Serpent said she would. Discontent with her wardrobe crept into her heart and ambition for something better sprang ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley
... Dowbiggin to join in the chorus, and Byles could be heard bleating from the closet. Ah, me! how soon we are spoiled by this sinful world, and lose the sweet innocence of our first years! how poor are the rewards of ambition compared with the simple ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... nations, of whom we shall have but a very imperfect idea, unless we have recourse to the inspired writers. They alone display, and bring to light, the secret thoughts of princes, their incoherent projects, their foolish pride, their impious and cruel ambition: they reveal the true causes and hidden springs of victories and overthrows; of the grandeur and declension of nations; the rise and ruin of states; and teach us, what indeed is the principal benefit to be derived from history, the judgment which the Almighty forms both of princes ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... temperament which, when once possessed with an idea, rests neither night nor day in pursuit of it and spares neither others' labour nor its own to carry the conception into effect. There was an element of inertia in his nature, and of the ordinary self-seeking motives which impel men not a trace. Ambition he had none—none, at all events, in the last ten or fifteen years, during which I have known him. As for vanity, I never saw a man so entirely devoid of it. His modesty amounted to a defect, in that he always underestimated his personal influence. ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... maintained with fair success, a chamber of his nature had been preserved intact during many later years, like the one solitary sealed-up cell occasionally retained by bees in a lobe of drained honey-comb. And thus, though he had irretrievably exhausted the relish of society, of ambition, of action, and of his profession, the love-force that he had kept immured alive was still ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... WRETCH WITHOUT IT.—The wretch without it is under eternal quarantine; no friend to greet; no home to harbor him, the voyage of his life becomes a joyless peril, and in the midst of all ambition can achieve, or avarice amass, or rapacity plunder, he tosses on the surge, a buoyant pestilence. But let me not degrade into selfishness of individual safety or individual exposure this individual principle; it testifies a higher, a more ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... Sturt's address, and shews the disinterested and generous zeal which that talented and successful traveller was ever ready to exert on behalf of those who were inclined to follow the career of enterprise and ambition in which he had with ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... confidants. In fact, though he spoke to Mrs. Butterfield as if he had conceived some deep plan of rascality, the man was not capable of anything above petty mischief. He liked to pose in secret as a sort of transpontine schemer; that flattered his self-importance; but his ambition did not seriously go beyond making trouble in a legitimate way. He did indeed believe that something scandalous was going on, and it would be all the better fun to have Ackroyd join him with malicious pleasure in a campaign ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... enthusiastic newcomer, who had heard of a lion in the vicinity, and immediately asked the old stager if he were going after it: "I have not lost any lions, therefore I am not looking for any"; but, all the same, to kill one or more fine specimens will ever remain the summit of the ambition of the hunter, and unquestionably the spice of danger is one ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... of officers for the government of the settlement is the next step and must be conducted in a most solemn manner, it being sometimes necessary to increase the number of jobs in order to satisfy the ambition of the chiefs and of the elders. The chosen ones are presented with the official staff of command in the name of the governor, and with the traditional jacket. Thus the new town is established. It is placed under the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... appointed to wait upon us—informing us as we started that he had orders to have luncheon ready for us by one o'clock. Arrived at the scene of our labours we each selected a suitable block of wood, and whilst Courtenay set to work upon a model of the Hermione, I, with greater ambition, devoted all my energies to the hewing out of a line-of-battle ship. Thus occupied the time passed swiftly away, and almost before we were aware of it the commandant, who had looked in upon us to see how we ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... enough to realize that the way of advancement led through this important family and he never lost an opportunity to cultivate the President of the Council. Colonel Fairfax became a benefactor of the young man's fortunes, an inspiration to his ambition, and was truly and wholeheartedly attached through his affections to the gangling youth. To the end of his life Fairfax signed his letters to George, "Y^r very affect^e & ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore
... by his hand. That office, in either case, Napoleon himself performed. Throughout the ceremonial his aspect was thoughtful: it was on a stern and gloomy brow that he with his own hands planted the symbol of successful ambition and uneasy power, and the shouts of the deputies present, carefully selected for the purpose, sounded faint and hollow amidst the silence of ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the nation will be the aim and boast of those who prize their local interests above the good of the nation, and millions upon millions will be abstracted by tariffs and taxes from the earnings of the whole people to foster speculation and subserve the objects of private ambition. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... becoming organization—and neither geographical remoteness nor unwieldiness of number nor local interests and differences were untractable obstacles to that spirit of fusion which was at once the ambition of the few and the instinct of the many; and cities, even where most powerful, had become the centres of the attracting and joining forces, knots in the political network—while this was going on more or less happily throughout the rest of Europe, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... torn apart. But I know she and I will never meet again. That I know as surely as that the sun will rise, and that cascade come shining over the rocks after I am dead and done.... Oh! It's all foolishness and haste and violence and cruel folly, stupidity and blundering hate and selfish ambition—all the things that men have done—all the things they will ever do. Gott! Smallways, what a muddle and confusion life has always been—the battles and massacres and disasters, the hates and harsh acts, the murders and sweatings, the lynchings ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... foothold, or rather two footholds, in North America. One of her colonies, Louisiana, lay beyond Florida at the mouth of the Mississippi; the other, Canada, to the north of the Maine, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. It was the aim of French colonial ambition to extend both colonies inland into the unmapped heart of the American continent until they should meet. This would necessarily have had the effect of hemming in the English settlements on the Atlantic seaboard and preventing their Western expansion. Throughout ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... our conversation, and obtained a sight of the book. It was her ambition. I believe it was fatal to her. She may have caught up enough of the outline to betray it. Jock, you remember that ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was now approaching for the fulfilment of his heart's ambition, but there is still one small incident to relate before we leave our hero. One day, while he was still on the farm, he was passed by a Kaffir, whom he questioned as to his destination. The native replied that ...
— The Petticoat Commando - Boer Women in Secret Service • Johanna Brandt
... remonstrances of his mother and his relatives, he started for the great West which then spelled opportunity to so many young men. He was only twenty years old, and he had not yet finished his academic course; but with the impatience of ambition he was reluctant to spend four more years in study before he could gain admission to the bar. In the newer States of the West conditions were easier. Moreover, he was no longer willing to be a burden ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Warde, "but I want to put one thing to you as strongly as a man may. I have always wished to be master of the Manor. Some men may think mine a small ambition. Master of a house at Harrow? Nothing big about that. Perhaps not. But I think it big. And it is big—for me. Understand that I'm in love with my job—head over heels. I'd sooner be master of the Manor than Prime Minister. I couldn't tackle his work. Enough of that. Now, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... these austerities and ask boons of me! Whatever your desires may be, they, with the single exception of that of immortality, will be fulfilled! As thou hast offered thy heads to the fire from great ambition, they will again adorn thy body as before, according to thy desire. And thy body will not be disfigured and thou shall be able to assume any form according to thy desire and become the conqueror of thy foes in battle. There is no doubt of this!" thereupon Ravana said, "May ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... that it was altogether your fault, for an evil destiny bound me to you, and it must seem odd to you when I say that, knowing you for what you are, I still love you. And to fill up this void, to trample down those surging memories, I have made myself a slave to my ambition, and the acquisition of another power that you cannot understand. The man you married me to is rich and a knight to-day. I made him so. If I live another twenty years, his wealth shall be colossal and his influence unbounded, and I will be one ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Ferrara, departed from Venice in the month of December of the same year, and falling sick at Ferrara, died so suddenly as to give rise to the suspicion of foul play, which too easily sprang up in those days when ambition or private vengeance found ready to hand weapons so many and so convenient. Crowe and Cavalcaselle give good grounds for the assumption that, in order to save appearances, Titian was supposed—replacing ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... particular beings. It was there before heaven was; all things are from it and return to it at last. It is the principle at the root and the beginning of all things, by which they move, without haste or struggle, ambition or confusion. Existing first absolute and undeveloped, it has now been expressed; men can know it, and the secret of all goodness, all success both for the individual and for the state, is to know Tao and live in it. This makes a man superior ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... admiration for the King, one may readily believe that even a slight impression made upon the girl's imagination would be inevitably deepened and strengthened in these days when the court life at Fontainebleau is described as a delirium of ambition, pleasure and love. The merry-making and feasting continued, the fetes still being given in Madame's honor, and "the modest violet" might have remained hidden beneath its leaves had not Madame Henriette's schemes involved Louise. It appears that the Queen Mother, having in common ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Ambition as regards telescopic power is by no means yet satisfied. Nor ought it to be. The advance of astrophysical researches of all kinds depends largely upon light-grasp. For the spectroscopic examination of stars, for the measurement of their motions in the line of sight, for the discovery and ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... incongruity in colour. He needs the form and he does not mind the incongruity, nor does he mind the fact that somebody else has done the solid part and he has only done the ramshackle part. You can say that he is nobly superior to jealousy, or that he is without artistic ambition, or that he is too much of a nomad to mind living half in somebody else's house and half in his own. The real quality is probably too subtle for any simple praise or blame; we can only say that there is in the wandering Moslem a curious kind of limited common sense; which might ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... one apology for the production of a metrical essay, composed chiefly of imperfect and immature pieces:—the ambition to contribute towards the fund of Christmas entertainment, in which agreeable labour I see many popular names engaged,—and among them, one, the most deservedly popular in the literature of the day. The favour with which an influential portion of the press ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... him to have made to Stratford, look like any thing but a wish to forget them or be forgotten by them. From what is known of his subsequent life, it is certain that he had, in large measure, that honourable ambition, so natural to an English gentleman, of being the founder of a family; and as soon as he had reached the hope of doing so, he retired to his old home, and there set up his rest, as if his best sunshine of life still waited on the presence of her from whose society he is alleged to have fled ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... see," he said, "I'm not trying for their admiration. I haven't the slightest ambition to shine as a cow-puncher, and if those fellows are fair samples I don't want anybody to mistake me ...
— The Forester's Daughter - A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range • Hamlin Garland
... by vulgar ambition, his loftiest desires might have been fully gratified by the career which Amurath projected for him. The Turkish Sultan destined for the Grecian Prince the hand of one of his daughters, and the principal command of his armies. He lavished upon him the highest dignities and boundless ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... emancipation of the slaves had rendered them comparatively unproductive, he said: "During the fearful struggle of a quarter of a century, for her existence as a nation, against the power and resources of Europe, directed by the most intelligent but remorseless military ambition against her, the command of the productions of the torrid zone, and the advantageous commerce which that afforded, gave to Great Britain the power and the resources which enabled her to meet, to combat, and to overcome, her numerous and reckless enemies in every battle-field, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... much of an ambition. I should call that simply foolhardy!" Joy could never understand such a desire. It was too far away ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... state of the law then prevented the writ from being moved until that time, and during the whole of that year the Ferrars family had pursued a course of unflagging display. Courage, expenditure, and tact combined, had realised almost the height of that social ambition to which Mrs. Ferrars soared. Even in the limited and exclusive circle which then prevailed, she began to be counted among the great dames. As for the twins, they seemed quite worthy of their beautiful and luxurious mother. Proud, wilful, and selfish, they had one redeeming quality, ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... but a set of verses which Kenrick had written for a prize exercise, and which he had just sent in too late. He had not lost all ambition, but he had no real friend now to inspirit or stimulate him, so that he often procrastinated, and ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... intention to persevere in a state of indolence and humility, whilst the duke, after having received the favours, or suffered the repulses, of all the coquettes in England, pays his addresses to the maids of honour, one after the other, and at present places his whole ambition and desires in the conquest of that ugly skeleton, Churchill? What! Madam, must then your prime of life be spent in a sort of widowhood in deploring your misfortunes, without ever being permitted to make use of any remedy ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... trifles—sandwiches, wafers, fancy cakes, ices, and possibly a salad. Foreigners understand the value of the simple feast which makes frequent entertaining possible and a delight rather than a burden. In America the menu, decorations, etc., grow more and more elaborate from the ambition of each successive hostess to out-do her neighbor, until the economy and beauty of simplicity is irretrievably lost in the greater expense, fatigue and crush of ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... lonely night and conscience speaks to him. But there are many distractions to ease his pain—the pleasures and amusements of life, the company of friends, the pursuit of business, the excitements of ambition. So he can manage a good deal to forget God, to acquire a distaste for God, and yet to dull the still small voice that hurts him. But these distractions are gone now. He has gone out into the new life, naked, alone. All the money and business ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... which her own family moved. Any day she might marry out of that middle-class world into the world of fashion. He saw that the girl moved in, and was happiest in, a great world to which he had not the key. He had the ambition to belong to that world, though his common-sense might have told him that he never could do more than hang about its outer courts. He was a calculating blackguard, a man of loose life, and a vulgar fellow with vulgar ambitions. He saw astutely enough that this girl was well on the ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... New Salem village to President of the United States, from captain of a backwoods volunteer company to Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy, was neither sudden nor accidental, nor easy. He was both ambitious and successful, but his ambition was moderate, and his success was slow. And, because his success was slow, it never outgrew either his judgment or his powers. Between the day when he left his father's cabin and launched his canoe on the headwaters of the Sangamon River to begin life on his own account, and the day ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... not going to be DOWNED for ever. I'll go through my particular piece of hell, on this darned old earth if I must, and then I'll wipe the slate and come out on top of something else that isn't love. There's possibilities enough along the Big Bight to satisfy most men's ambition. And it's not much odds any way, so long ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... that Judge Wright remembered the weak lad he had left on Colonel Boone's hands, a victim of a father's lack of training, and found here, instead, the same lad, but with much of the weakness erased, a man now, with an ambition to do ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... taken to hold me in security. Certain it is that in my chains I thought more rationally, more nobly, reasoned more philosophically on man, his nature, his zeal, his imaginary wants, the effects of his ambition, his passions, and saw more distinctly his dream of earthly good, than those who had imprisoned, or those who guarded me. I was void of the fears that haunt the parasite who servilely wears the fetters of a court, and ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 2 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... helping to make many freemen, I liberate myself. You wonder why I refused promotion. Have I any right to it yet? Are there not men who never sinned as I have done, and beside whose sacrifices mine look pitifully small? You tell me I have no ambition. I have the highest, for I desire to become God's noblest work,—an honest man,—living, to make Margaret happy, in a love that every hour grows worthier of her own,—dying, to make death ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... in ten thousand, to the praise of his politeness, and the honour of them both!—And then, when select parties of pleasure or business engaged him not abroad, in his home conversation, to have him delight to instruct and open her views, and inspire her with an ambition to enlarge her mind, and more and more to excel! What an intellectual kind of married life would such persons find theirs! And how suitable to the rules of policy and self-love in the gentleman; for is not the wife, and are not her improvements, all his own?—Absolutely, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... richly, we went and lived in it, and kept a great many slaves of both sexes, with a very pretty equipage. In short, we began to live in a very agreeable manner, which did not last long, for at a year's end my wife fell sick and died. I might have married again, and lived honourably at Bagdad; but ambition to see the world put me upon other thoughts. I sold my house, and, after buying up several sorts of goods, went with a caravan to Persia; from Persia I travelled to Samarcande, and from ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... hope or ambition of the cosmos, which we call attempted positivism: not to find out the new; not to add to what is called ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... Mrs. Spragg had no ambition for herself—she seemed to have transferred her whole personality to her child—but she was passionately resolved that Undine should have what she wanted, and she sometimes fancied that Mrs. Heeny, who crossed those sacred thresholds ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... demagogues of a party associated not with him, and could not know him. Why should he be an oppressor? Was it to serve the King, the whole tenor of whose life had been honorable and virtuous? Was it for himself that he should practice oppression? For what should he be an oppressor? Ambition could not prompt him, with a life ebbing slowly to a close, under the pressure of a disease acquired in the service of his country. He only looked forward to pass the remaining period of his life in the comfort of retirement, among his friends. ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... establishing his position, was the agent of his father's policy. The Queen's latest favourite, the young Earl of Essex—a son-in-law of Walsingham, and stepson of Leicester—was no statesman in fact, though he fancied himself one. His ambition was unlimited; and while, as an anti-Spaniard, he was a leader of the party opposed to the Cecils, he was not less hotly jealous of his rival within that party, Walter Raleigh (at an earlier period, and also afterwards, associated with the Cecils), whose large conceptions he could ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... staples to the staff. Two boys, burning with zeal, started for the cupola to cut loose the flag. One of these, although a lad of eighteen, was a member of the Richmond Howitzers. Hoping to outstrip the other, he climbed hand over hand up the lightning-rod. Just as he reached the goal of his ambition, however, the staples securing the rod pulled out and the boy was left swaying back and forth in mid-air, while the crowd upon the top of the capitol and on the ground below looked on in horror. The lightning-rod was one of the old-fashioned sort, and more than an inch in diameter. One ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... that he should have been the principal subject of conversation between the good old lady and a grandson whom she so much wished to resemble him. It was, therefore, the first object of William's ambition, to see this wonderful uncle; and no sooner were his wishes accomplished, than he determined to leave no means untried to be allowed ...
— The Eskdale Herd-boy • Mrs Blackford
... next minute. Challoner was somewhat touched by her frank appeal, and though he saw that she was sufficiently ambitious to subordinate her affection to her desire for her lover's advancement, it was an ambition he could sympathize with. The woman was willing to make a sacrifice. For all that, he felt that he could not conscientiously ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... They gave me erections; and it was on top of the excitement thus engendered that one day I got a woman to do fellatio, as already mentioned. Moreover, since my illness, I found all my previous energy and ambition had gone. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... lived among men and women who laughed at those simple virtues. The simple conditions of life are all that are worth striving for. They come to us fresh from Nature and from Nature's God. The complex are but concoctions of man after recipes in the devil's alchemy. So much gold, so much ambition, so much lust. Mix ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... Danby, too, after giving himself numberless bruises, became so expert that he finally attained the summit of his ambition by hanging from the horizontal ladder and going hand over hand its entire length, though not without much puffing and panting and a frantic flourishing ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... them; he begins to feel he is ignorant—a state beyond the fickleness of the child—a characteristic state, corresponding to activity in the astral world. Then comes the state of preoccupation, or infatuation, Vikshipta, the state of the man possessed by an idea—love, ambition, or what not. He is no longer a confused youth, but a man with a clear aim, and an idea possesses him. It may be either the fixed idea of the madman, or the fixed idea which makes the hero or the saint; but in any case he is possessed by the idea. The quality of the idea, its truth or falsehood, ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant
... temperament an undercurrent of ambition so strong as to cause her to receive their advances toward tender acquaintance with a freezing coldness, while at the same time it rendered her positively unhappy. She felt superior to her condition, and she longed to rise above it. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... was a man of generous chivalrous nature, who took large views of life, apt to be unfairly stigmatised as Radical in the narrow Tory reaction that prevailed in Scotland during the early years of the 19th century.[7] Devoid of literary ambition, he wrote much for his private pleasure, and his knowledge and library (rich in Persian and Arabic MSS.) were always placed freely at the service of his friends and correspondents, some of whom, such as Major C. Stewart and Mr. William Erskine, were more given ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... very certain that Mr. Pitt will never come into this, or any other administration: he is absolutely a cripple all the year, and in violent pain at least half of it. Such physical ills are great checks to two of the strongest passions to which human nature is liable, love and ambition. Though I cannot persuade myself that the present ministry can be long lived, I can as little imagine who or what can succeed them, 'telle est la-disette de sujets papables'. The Duke of swears that he will have Lord personally attacked in both Houses; ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... an application blank to be filled out stating his qualifications for membership. It was necessary that the paper should be signed by his mother as evidence of her consent to his enlistment since he was not yet twenty-one years of age. She signed it readily enough, for she quite approved of his ambition, and she took a motherly pride in the evidences of patriotism that he was ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... appear to have existed at the same time in the mind of Jesus. The first one, however—that of a temporal revolution—does not appear to have impressed him much; he never regarded the earth or the riches of the earth, or material power, as worth caring for. He had no worldly ambition. Sometimes by a natural consequence, his great religious importance was in danger of being converted into mere social importance. Men came requesting him to judge and arbitrate on questions affecting ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... can find employment for them, and arouse their hope and self-confidence and ambition, it is better than carloads of ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Dialogue, a Prologue and Epilogue, in short, the Trimming of his Comedy. By this time, Philo begins to think himself a great Man, and nothing less than the writing of a Play, can satisfie his towring Ambition; well, the Play is writ, the Players, upon the Recommendation of those that lick'd it over, like their Parts to a Fondness, and the Comedy, or Tragedy, being supported partly by its real Merit, but most powerfully by a Toasting, ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... the remembrance of Jesus to slay every wicked thought; and the things that tempt us most, that most directly appeal to our worst sides, to our sense, our ambition, our pride, our distrust, our self-will, all these lose their power upon us, and are discovered in their emptiness and insignificance, when once this thought flashes across the mind—Jesus Christ is my Defence, and Jesus Christ is my Pattern and ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... old pewterer, Burgum. Imagine the fair-haired rosy boy, the brightness of his extraordinary eyes increased by the covert mischief which urged him forward—fancy his presenting himself to Master Burgum, who, dull as his own pewter, had the ambition, which the cunning youth fostered, of being thought of an "ancient family"—fancy Chatterton in his poor-school dress presenting himself to this man, whose business, Chatterton's biographer, Mr. ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... roots for himself, though knowing that the boy could plant and cultivate it if he were allowed a chance, and that such a privilege would be likely to develop his energies, and show of what stuff he was made. The notion was too common that a boy was all work, and had no ambition,—whatever work was in him must be got out of him, just as if he had been a horse or an ox. It was known that at some time he must take care of himself, yet he was not properly taught how to do so. The stimulant of letting him have a small ...
— Our Young Folks—Vol. I, No. II, February 1865 - An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... the boy's ambition, Low the standard lies, Still they stand, and gaze—a sweeter ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... of Keturah's life to see a burglar. The second of the memorable nights referred to crowned this ambition by not only one burglar, but two. She it was who discovered them, she who frightened them away, and nobody but she ever saw them. She confesses to a natural and unconquerable pride in them. It ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... and again the Lord had to remind the apostles that the greatest of them all was he who most willingly served his fellows. They had been taught before; yet now, at this late and solemn hour, they were suffused with vain and selfish ambition. In sorrowful earnestness the Lord pleaded with them, asking who is greater, he that sits at the table, or he that serves? And the obvious reply He supplemented by the statement: "But I am among you as he that ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... Great. Gregory, as the son of a rich and distinguished Roman senator, enjoyed a good education in all the learning of the time. He entered public life and at an early age became prefect of Rome. But now, almost at the outset of his career, Gregory laid aside earthly ambition. He gave up his honorable position and spent the fortune, inherited from his father, in the foundation of monasteries and the relief of the poor. He himself became a monk, turned his palace at Rome into a monastery, and almost ruined his health by too great devotion to fasts and midnight vigils. ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... makes friendship, but effeminacy love. Shakspeare had an universal mind, which comprehended all characters and passions; Fletcher, a more confined and limited: for though he treated love in perfection, yet honour, ambition, revenge, and generally all the stronger passions, he either touched not, or not masterly. To conclude all he ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... no longer the ambition of monarchs which endangers peace; the passions of the people, its dissatisfaction with interior conditions and affairs, the strife of parties, and the intrigues of their leaders are the causes. A declaration of war, so serious in its consequences, is more easily carried by a large assembly, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... Debby Stone, and board her, too, than pay the doctor. Ambition ain't strength. Home-work, and sewing-machine, and parish visiting—that's burning the candle at both ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson
... of suffering on the part of subjects is to be found the ambition of their rulers, even if every actual case should be referred to some other cause. It is in this sense only that the inference is a necessary one. But then this is the only sense which formal logic is competent ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... came back to him with dust upon them. They were dry and crumbling like forsaken habitations. The son upon whom his complacent ambition had rested had turned his back upon the mansion of his father's hopes. The break might not be final; and in any event there would be much to live for; the fortunes of the family would be secure. But the zest of it all would be gone if John Weightman ...
— The Mansion • Henry Van Dyke
... meetings, and fulfilled all the duties of an academician. Each member took the name of some famous man of antiquity. Alcuin called himself Horace, another took the name of Augustin, a third of Pindar. Charlemagne, who knew the Psalms by heart, and who had an ambition to be, according to his conception, A KING AFTER GOD'S OWN HEART, received from his brother academicians the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... this good prince, the ambition of the count of Mountfort broke through all these regulations, and kindled a war, not only dangerous to Brittany, but to a great part of Europe. While Charles of Blois was soliciting at the court of France the investiture of the duchy, Mountfort was active in acquiring ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... bravest and best; and all ages and peoples have imagined or produced heroes as inevitably as they have made ploughs for turning the soil or ships for getting through the water or weapons with which to fight their enemies. To be some kind of a hero has been the ambition of spirited boys from the beginning of history; and if you want to know what the men and women of a country care for most, you must study their heroes. To the boy the hero stands for the highest success: to the grown man and woman he stands ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... had been seized by one of those unaccountable romantic fancies to which the young of the race are disposed. Though the sentiment was certainly far less dangerous than Fanny's passion for the, matine idol, since it revealed itself principally as a robust and wholly masculine ambition to follow in the footsteps of adventure, Gabriella fought it almost as fiercely as she had fought Fanny's ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... passions seem to arise out of the exertions of these two faculties of the animal sensorium. Pride, hope, joy, are the names of particular pleasures: shame, despair, sorrow, are the names of peculiar pains: and love, ambition, avarice, of particular desires: hatred, disgust, fear, anxiety, of particular aversions. Whilst the passion of anger includes the pain from a recent injury, and the aversion to the adversary that occasioned it. And compassion is the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... influence over the people, with an intrepid confidence in its own strength, which is sufficiently numerous to feel all the passions which actuate a multitude, yet not so numerous as to be incapable of pursuing the objects of its passions by means which reason prescribes, it is against the enterprising ambition of this department that the people ought to indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their precautions." "The legislative department derives a superiority in our governments from other circumstances. Its constitutional powers being at once more extensive and less susceptible ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson |
