"Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "Yes, Sir, my ambition made me always aspire to much higher things and so did the treatment which I always received from you heretofore; but now, that you talk of abandoning me to 'lie upon a hard bed,' and intimate that, unless I give up the object of my choice, I am not to expect any thing from you, the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... ever wished to pass for what he was, One that swerved much, and oft, but being still Deliberately bent upon the right, Had kept it in the main; one that much loved Whate'er in man is worthy high respect, And in his soul devoutly did aspire To be it all: yet felt from time to time The littleness that clings to what is human, And suffered from the shame of having ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... soul within us burns To see dark Ignorance aspire To move toward light a mind that yearns For knowledge that may lift it higher Upon the royal road of truth, While every word and act and thought Betrays an atmosphere so fraught With lack of common sense and ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... boldness and obstinacy that is theirs, is the blend of qualities by which distant settlements can be established and kept; to these qualities must be traced the founding of the English colonial empire, and the power which allowed the Plantagenet kings to aspire, as early as the fourteenth century, to be the "Rois de ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... 'it is no such easy matter, Harmonides, to become a public character, or to gain the prestige and distinction to which you aspire; and if you propose to set about it by performing in public, you will find it a long business, and at the best will never achieve a universal reputation. Where will you find a theatre or circus large enough ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... statues and the beautiful dead dream-women, vanished with the neiges d'antan. What did it matter whom I married? Perhaps you would have had me aspire higher than a grisette? To a tradesman's daughter? Or a demoiselle in society? 'Explain my position?'—a poor exile's position—to some double-chinned bourgeois papa who can only see that my immortal books are ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Institution for the Encouragment of the Fine Arts opens to-day, with a handsome entertainment in the Exhibition-room, as at Somerset House. It strikes me that the direction given by amateurs and professors to their proteges and pupils, who aspire to be artists, is upon a pedantic and false principle. All the Fine Arts have it for their highest and more legitimate end and purpose, to affect the human passions, or smooth and alleviate for a time ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... over the President and his party. It is true that—although British subjects by birth—they have chosen to associate themselves with the Transvaal Government and are now uncompromising republicans; but there is no fault to be found with that. It may be true also that they aspire to republicanize the whole of South Africa, and free it of the Imperial influence; that would be a cause of enmity as between them and those who desire to preserve the Imperial connection, but it is no ground for reproach. There is one point, however, ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... those who aspire to European garments seem to have no perception of the relation subsisting between the various parts of a gentleman's costume. To the wearer of a coat, for instance, pantaloons are by no means indispensable; and a bell-crowned hat and a girdle ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... less hedged about by sabbatical restrictions. Not that she wished her family to be of the questionable sort that went to El Campo or Shell Mound Park for Sunday picnics and returned in quarrelsome state at a late hour smelling of bad whisky and worse gin. Nor did she aspire to have sprung from the Teutonic stock that perpetrated more respectable but equally noisy outings in the vicinity of Woodward's Gardens. But she had a furtive and sly desire to float oil-like upon the surface of this turbid sea, touching it at certain points, yet scarcely ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... everything of life. Any one can see that unless Life which is very Man acted into that which in itself is not life, the formation of anything such as exists in man would be impossible, in whom are thousands of thousands of things that make a one, and that unanimously aspire to an image of the Life from which they spring, that man may become a receptacle and abode of that Life. From all this it can be seen that love, and out of the love the will, and out of the will the heart, strive unceasingly towards ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... own accomplishments, borrow their pens and aspire to their successes. "We have recovered from those old Gothic and absurd prejudices against literary culture," says the Prince de Henin;[4319] "as for myself I would compose a comedy to-morrow if I had the talent, and if I happened ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the lofty summit of laudable ambitions into the sultry plains of domestic drudgery and menial toil, nearly every ray of hope had perished upon the strained vision of the Negro. The only thing young Colored men could aspire to was the position of a waiter, the avocation of a barber, the place of a house-servant or groom, and teach or preach to their own people with little or no qualifications. Denied the opportunities and facilities of securing an education, they were upbraided by the press ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... Aspire to her, the daughter of a king? How dost thou dare, a vassal such as thou, A ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... filled with money-making ideas, and sees the way to wealth opening in a broad vista before him. Every day he hears about this, that, and the other one, who started in business but a few years before, with little or no capital, and who are now worth their tens of thousands; and he thus learns to aspire after wealth, without being made to feel sensibly the fact, that the number who grow rich rapidly are as one to a hundred compared with those who succeed as the result of small beginnings united with long continued and untiring application. Long before Edward reached his ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... in Madame Bertrand's garden. To the right was the staircase, to the left the salle-a-manger, a low room with two windows looking on to the Place, and furnished with half-a-dozen small round tables, for the hotel was of too unpretentious a nature to aspire to a table d'hote; the floor lacked polish, and the furniture was shabby, yet the room had a friendly look to our homeless Madelon, as a frequent resting-place in such wanderings to and fro as had been hers in former ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... the title of alderman was regarded as one of the most honourable distinctions to which a freeman could aspire. After a time, however, it was conferred with somewhat too liberal courtesy on nearly every individual vested with authority. The presidents of district guilds were especially known by this designation, which they afterwards monopolized when the guilds became raised into wards or hundreds ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... sorie to writ how many hear thinke y^t the hand of God was justly against him, both y^e first and 2. time of his returne; in regard he, whom you and we so confidently trusted, but only to use his name for y^e company, should aspire to be lord over us all, and so make you & us tenants at his will and pleasure, our assurance or patente being quite voyd & disanuled by his means. I desire to judg charitably of him. But his unwillingnes to part with his royall Lordship, and y^e high-rate he set it at, which was 500^li. which cost ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... love dancing and aspire to make it a career, you possess an innate sense of rhythm. You feel the swing of music and love to move your body to the strains of a lilting melody. The first great possessions of the successful stage dancer are a love of harmonious ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... but, dying young, I stepped into what would otherwise have been his succession, in my eighteenth year. My uncle Ro, however, had got both Satanstoe and Lilacsbush; two country-houses and farms, which, while they did not aspire to the dignity of being estates, were likely to prove more valuable, in the long run, than the broad acres which were intended for the patrimony of the elder brother. My grandfather was affluent; for not only had the fortune of the ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... rather be a charwoman! I don't aspire to be editress of the school magazine, I assure you, nor even a contributor. By the way, Honor, why don't you send something? ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... overlooking the truth or the falsehood of an opinion, appeals to prejudice by the use of an odious name, is unworthy of a serious and candid inquirer after truth, and therefore should be laid aside by all who aspire to such a character. ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... fell, To succour one they loved so well? Yes, Higginbottom did aspire (His fireman's soul was all on fire) His brother chief to save; But ah! his reckless generous ire Served but to abate his grave! 'Mid blazing beams and scalding streams. Through fire and smoke he dauntless broke, Where Muggins broke before: But sulphry stench and boiling ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... to give himself came from his reading an Appeal by Mr. Gutzlaff to the Churches of Britain and America on behalf of China. It was "the claims of so many millions of his fellow-creatures, and the complaints of the scarcity, of the want of qualified missionaries," that led him to aspire to the office. From that time—apparently his twenty-first year—his "efforts were constantly directed toward that ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... ye jolly covies, vot faking do admire, [1] And pledge them British authors who to our line aspire; Who, if they were not gemmen born, like us had kicked at trade, And every one had turned him out a genuine fancy blade, [2] ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... ideas, a natural theology, and a psychology. This general outline alone would have sufficed to explain why, having to treat of economic matters, I was obliged previously to suppose the existence of God, and by what title I, a simple economist, aspire to ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... the pinto several points. To be known, and, as Bill's tone indicated, favorably known by The Duke, was a testimonial to which any horse might aspire. ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... policy of the political corruption committees of corporations to ascertain the weakness and wants of every man whose services they are likely to need, and to attack him, if his surrender should be essential to their victory, at his weakest point. Men with political ambition are encouraged to aspire to preferment and are assured of corporate support to bring it about. Briefless lawyers are promised corporate business or salaried attorneyships. Those in financial straits are accommodated with loans. Vain ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth, A carpenter thy father known, thyself Bred up in poverty and straits at home, Lost in a desert here and hunger-bit. Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire To greatness? whence authority deriv'st? What followers, what retinue canst thou gain, Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude, 420 Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? Money brings honour, friends, conquest, ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... graves! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, —He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! We shall march prospering,—not through his presence; Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre; Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence, Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire: Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more, One task more declined, one more footpath untrod, One more devil's-triumph and sorrow for angels, One wrong more to man, one more insult to God! Life's night begins: let him never ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... prayers: Fraught with a wife, he wanted heirs: They came, to be annoys or joys— One girl and two big bouncing boys. And, a third time, he prayed his prayer For grace unto his son and heir— That he, who should his name inherit, Might be replete with worth and merit. Then begged his second might aspire, With strong ambition, martial fire; That Fortune he might break or bend, And on her neck to heights ascend. Last, for the daughter, prayed that graces Might tend upon her ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... halt, am I lame, am I blind? Am I repulsively ugly? Am I a pauper, that I should care for your money? Have I not loved you—yes, loved you long and faithfully? Am I too old? Is there anything in the nature of things why I should not aspire to ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... against adverse fortune—a struggle in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are now as common to us as air and sunshine, have come from that law of our nature which makes us aspire toward indefinite improvement, enriches each successive generation by the labors of the last, and, in free countries, often lifts the child of the laborer to a place among the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity is the mother ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... brilliant aspire To sing what I gaze on in vain; For sorrow has torn from my lyre The string which was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 471, Saturday, January 15, 1831 • Various
... aspire to the second prizes; to be a profound interpreter and commenter, to be a sharp champion and defender, to be a methodical compounder and abridger. And this is the unfortunate succession of wits which the world hath yet had, whereby the patrimony of ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... very blossom of civilisation triumphant and hopeful; it would fain lead men to aspire towards perfection: each hope that it fulfils gives birth to yet another hope: it bears in its bosom the worth and the meaning of life and the counsel to strive to understand everything; to fear nothing and to hate nothing: in a word, 'tis the symbol ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... the affecting earnestness of serious conversation, and allured by the attractive beauty of a consistently serious life. And while a young woman ought to dread the name of a wrangling polemic, it is her duty to aspire after the honourable character of a sincere Christian. But this dignified character she can by no means deserve, if she is ever afraid to avow her principles, or ashamed to defend them. A profligate, who makes it a point to ridicule everything which comes under the appearance of formal instruction, ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... her lover before that she did not aspire to please the multitude, that she would have esteemed such cheap and tawdry success a humiliating failure. It was almost better not to be read at all than to be appreciated only by the average Mudie subscriber. But she would have liked someone ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... had my mind, unknowing how to soar, In humble prose been train'd, nor aim'd at more: Near the fam'd sisters never durst aspire To sound a verse, or touch the tuneful lyre. 'Till Bristol's charms dissolv'd the native cold; Bad me survey her eyes, and thence be bold. Thee, lovely Bristol! thee! with pride I chuse, The first, and only subject ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... this crisis to see the folly, before they feel the misery, of civil strife, and inspire a returning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen, as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire. ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... action that we may date the entry of this title into English history as a mark of rank in the baronage, more and more freely bestowed, a title of honour to which a family of great possessions or influence might confidently aspire. But it must be remembered that the earldoms thus created are quite different from those of the Anglo-Saxon state or from the countships of France. They carried with them increase of social consideration and rank, usually some increase of wealth in grants from ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... predominant inclination, and push the mind, with more determined resolution, towards that side which already draws too much, by the bias and propensity of the natural temper. It is certain that, while we aspire to the magnanimous firmness of the philosophic sage, and endeavour to confine our pleasures altogether within our own minds, we may, at last, render our philosophy like that of Epictetus, and other Stoics, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... Imagination was not the characteristic of Shakspeare, but which Milton possessed in a degree far exceeding other Poets: which Union, as the highest species of Poetry, and chiefly deserving that name, "He was most proud to aspire to;" then illustrating the said Union by two quotations from his own 2d vol. (which I had been so unfortunate as to miss). 1st ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... to avow himself a Radical should be promptly branded as the bitter and malignant enemy of the South; every man who presumes to aspire to office through Republican votes should be saturated with stench. As for the negroes, let them amuse themselves, if they will, by voting the Radical ticket. We have the count. We have a thousand good and true men in Horsford whose brave ballots will be found equal ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... presenting his plea to Julia that Sunday night arose from the sense not of what he clung to, but of what he had given up. He had turned his back on serious work, so that pottering was now all he could aspire to. It couldn't be fruitful, it couldn't be anything but ridiculous, almost ignoble; but it soothed his nerves, it was in the nature of a secret dissipation. He had never suspected he should some day have nerves on his own part to count ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... if the empire of a commonwealth be an occasion to ask whether it be lawful for a commonwealth to aspire to the empire of the world, it is to ask whether it be lawful for it to do its duty, or to put the world into a better ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... destiny of our dreams. America believes, America is ready, America can win the race to the future—and we shall. The American dream is a song of hope that rings through night winter air; vivid, tender music that warms our hearts when the least among us aspire to the greatest things: to venture a daring enterprise; to unearth new beauty in music, literature, and art; to discover a new universe inside a tiny silicon chip or a single ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... upon the Continent for a peasant's or even a tradesman's son or daughter to aspire to a higher level than that of the family. Exceptions to the rule are looked upon with distrust by superiors as well as the lowly equals: too much ambition is a temptation to the gods which ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... what a ghastly failure! See how feeble after all, are these pretentious women of the new order, who begin by denying the sufficiency of the life assigned them, by common consent, and end by failing in that and in the other which they aspire to. What has become of all the talent and all the theories and resolves?' And so the next girl who dares to have ambitions, and dares to scorn the role of adventuress that society allots to her, will have the harder fate ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... is the real objective of all our activities. And, as has been already said, we are teaching life by the laboratory method. We are striving to interpret the thing in which we are immersed. We feel, and think, and aspire, and love, and enjoy. All these are life; and from this life we are striving to extract strength that our feeling may be deeper, our thinking higher, our aspirations wider and more lofty, our love purer and nobler, and our own enjoyment greater. ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson
... poets and humorists attracted as much custom to good Mr. Pfaff's beer-saloon as did his fresh, cool lager; and that young men, and, for the matter of that, men not so young, stole in there to listen to their contests of wit, and to wish and yearn and aspire to be of their goodly company. For the old gentleman little dreamed, as he went on his course up Broadway, that he had seen the first Bohemians of New York, and that these young men would be written about and talked about and versified about for generations to come. Unconscious ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... Scot, a Highlander of the Isles, sat upon a barrel-head sawing at a fiddle, and the shrill scream of it filled the barn. Tone he did not aspire to, but he played with Caledonian verve and swing, and kept the snapping time. It was mad, harsh music of the kind that sets the blood tingling and the feet to move in rhythm, though the exhilarating effect of it was rather spoiled by the efforts of the little ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... Roscoe Conkling and all his ways. Conkling once said to him: 'If you will join us and act with us, there is nothing in the gift of the State of New York to which you may not reasonably aspire.' To which Wheeler replied: 'Mr. Conkling, there is nothing in the gift of the State which will compensate me for the forfeiture of my own self-respect.'"—Hoar, Autobiography, Vol. 1, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... you, but in your case it's representation in oils—or do you practise water-colours and pastel too? You even go much further than I, for I study my art of predilection only in the works of others. I don't aspire to leave works of my own. You're a painter, possibly a great one; but I'm not an actor." Nick Dormer declared he would certainly become one—he was so well on the way to it; and Sherringham, without heeding this charge, went on: "Let me ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... hardships I had endured had given additional mildness to my character. In the theatre upon which I was now placed I had no rival. My mechanical occupation had hitherto been a non-resident; and the schoolmaster, who did not aspire to the sublime heights of science I professed to communicate, was willing to admit me as a partner in the task of civilising the unpolished manners of the inhabitants. For the parson, civilisation was no part of his trade; his business ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... the presage of unexampled good to the nations. Who, then, of the rising race, is so dead to generous feeling, so deaf to the voice of Providence, so blind to the beauty of moral excellence, that he will not now aspire to some course of worthy action? Let this motto, then, stand out like the sun in the firmament: HE THAT STRIVETH FOR THE MASTERY, IS TEMPERATE ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... defend), and no provision be made in your life who should rule and govern this realm, then this realm, after your transitory life, shall be destitute of a governor, or else percase [be] encumbered with a person that would count to aspire to the same, whom the subjects of this realm shall not find in their hearts to love, dread, and obediently serve[623] as their sovereign lord; and if your Grace, before it be certainly known whether ye shall have ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... rather be dead and have its remains venerated, or be alive and wagging its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud," said the officials. "Begone" said Chung. "The tortoise is a symbol of longevity and great wisdom. It would not befit me to aspire to greater wisdom than the tortoise. I, too, prefer ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve. Shall man's basest desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law: such a condition of things can ...
— As a Man Thinketh • James Allen
... insulting catering to her foibles, with which woman has been accustomed to be treated, and which have made her either the slave, the toy, or the ridicule of man; and it is getting to see that she is at least of as much relative importance as man; that without her he will in vain aspire to rise; that, by a law as infallible as that which moves and regulates the spheres, his condition is determined by hers; that wherever she has been a slave, he has been a tyrant, and that all oppression and injustice practised upon her has been sure in the end to rebound upon himself. If there ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... distant deeps or skies Burnt the ardour of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire— What the hand dare seize ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... time the Exceptores in the Eastern Empire were divided into two corps, the higher one called Augustales, who were limited in number to thirty, and the lower, of indefinite number and composing the rank and file of the profession. The Augustales only could aspire to the rank of Cornicularius; but in order that some prizes might still be left of possible attainment by the larger class, the rank of Primiscrinius was tenable by those who remained 'on the rolls of the Exceptores.' The reason for this change was that the unchecked application ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... presence. Among a small circle of intimate acquaintances she counted Millicent Jaques the best and truest. They had drifted apart; but that was owing to Helen's lack of means. She was not able, nor did she aspire, to mix in the society that hailed the actress as a bright particular star. Yet it meant much to a girl earning her daily bread in a heedless city that she should possess one friend of her own age and sex who could speak of the golden years when they were children together,—the years when Helen's ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... take a dictionary into their hands, have been accustomed to expect from it a solution of almost every difficulty. If foreign words, therefore, were rejected, it could be little regarded, except by criticks, or those who aspire to criticism; and however it might enlighten those that write, would be all darkness to them that only read. The unlearned much oftener consult their dictionaries for the meaning of words, than for their structures or formations; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... on a darkling race; save for that doubt, I stood at first where all aspire at last To stand: the secret of the world was mine. I knew, I felt (perception unexpressed, Uncomprehended by our narrow thought, But somehow felt and known in every shift And change in the spirit,—nay, in every pore Of the body, even)—what God is, ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... sir,' replied Alan Fairford; 'I do not aspire to the honour of being reputed their confidant or go-between. My concern with those gentlemen is limited to one matter of business, dearly interesting to me, because it concerns the safety—perhaps ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... certainly not be inveigled by so wily a manner of advancing self-interests; and when the proper time arrives, if ridicule has not already done justice on this absurd candidacy, we shall ourselves prove to the pretender that to aspire to the distinguished honor of representing the nation something more is required than the money to buy a paper and pay an underling to put into good French the horrible diction of his articles and pamphlets. We confine ourselves to-day to this limited notice, but our readers may be sure ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Grenada, heir to the Spanish throne, imprisoned by order of the Crown for fear he would aspire to the throne, was kept in solitary confinement in the old prison at the Palace of Skulls, Madrid. After thirty-three years in this living tomb, death came to his release, and the following remarkable researches, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... such honour I aspire." Said Venus, "But a simple maid am I, And 'tis the manner of the maids of Tyre To wear, like me, the quiver, and to tie The purple buskin round the ankles high. The realm thou see'st is Punic; Tyrians are The folk, the town Agenor's. Round them lie The Libyan plains, a people ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... appeared, or to take the place of exhaustive histories, such as that of Professor Leonello Venturi on the Italian primitives. It should but serve to pave the way to deeper and more detailed reading. It does not aspire to give a complete and comprehensive list of the painters; some of the minor ones may not even be mentioned. The mere inclusion of names, dates, and facts would add unduly to the size of the book, and, when without real ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... witticism. That any high order of wit is exceedingly complex, and demands a ripe and strong mental development, has one evidence in the fact that we do not find it in boys at all in proportion to their manifestation of other powers. Clever boys generally aspire to the heroic and poetic rather than the comic, and the crudest of all their efforts are their jokes. Many a witty man will remember how in his school days a practical joke, more or less Rabelaisian, ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... his pupils preparing for their degree. For me, the outsider, to enter that tabernacle with my band of young imps would be most unseemly; the rightful occupant would never think of allowing it. I feel it myself: elementary teaching dare not aspire to such familiarity with the higher culture. Very well, we will not go there, so long as they ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... fault, please note. Me car-eer is an open book. I've held nawthin' back fr'm th' public, not even whin 'twas mar-rked private. I can say with th' pote that I done me jooty. But, oh, Chanse! don't iver aspire to my job. Be sicrety of war, if ye will; but niver be sicrety iv A war. Do not offer this letter to th' newspapers. Make thim take it. How's things goin' with ye, ol' pal? I hope to see ye at th' seaside. Till thin, I'm yours, sick at heart, but atin' ...
— Mr. Dooley in Peace and in War • Finley Peter Dunne
... because they were the Princes faults, they also have suffered the punishment. I will fuller shew the infelicity of these armes. The mercenary Captains are either very able men, or not: if they be, thou canst not repose any trust in them: for they will alwaies aspire unto their own proper advancements, either by suppressing of thee that art their Lord, or by suppressing of some one else quite out of thy purpose: but if the Captain be not valorous, he ordinarily ruines thee: and in case it be answered, that whoever shall ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... wife near the great portrait. They were laughing loudly. Carson's thin face was beaming. Even Mrs. Carson's face had lost some of its tension. Sommers could watch her manner from his position in the upper hall. She was dismissing a minor guest with a metallic smile. 'To aspire to this!' he murmured unconsciously. ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... from the battle-field Bid him retire, and join th' assembled Gods, Or to his own domain of sea withdraw. If my commands he heed not, nor obey, Let him consider in his inmost soul If, mighty though he be, he dare await My hostile coming; mightier far than him, His elder born; nor may his spirit aspire To rival me, whom all ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... wished to return and look for it. This incident will, I think, demonstrate the exceptional character of the man, who did not appear to regard himself as a hero, or to pose as a desperate farceur, or to aspire to the post of Q.M.S., though, incredible as it may seem, the puttee in question was of the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 10, 1917 • Various
... artist's rank is in harmony with Browning's general feeling that men are to be judged less by their actual achievements than by the possibilities that lie unfolded within them, and the ends to which they aspire, even though such ends be unattained: "In the hierarchy of creative minds, it is the presence of the highest faculty that gives first rank, in virtue of its kind, not degree; no pretension of a lower nature, whatever ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... concerned to challenge his opponent's definition of man's reasoning power. His sole object was to show that, if one accepted this definition, one must not go as far as Hume in the application of this power. All that Kant could aspire to do was to protect the ethical from attack by the intellectual part of man, and to do this by proving that the former belongs to a world into which the latter has no access. For with his will man ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... who aspire to live in comfort and in a respectable neighborhood, and to occupy a whole house, the average is from five to six thousand dollars. With six thousand dollars a year, a family of five persons, living in a rented ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... his mind as old Grizzie. And if, like the old captain, she might be permitted to creep about the place after night-fall, she desired nothing better than the chance of serving him still, if but by rolling a stone out of his way. The angels might bear him in their hands—she could not aspire to that, but it would be much the same whether she got the stone out of the way of his foot, or they lifted his foot ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... powers. The poet and the painter and the novelist, not to mention all the non-human agents in the universe, are bound to do a good many things much better than the composer can; and even if he may personally aspire to be a kind of spectator of all time and existence, he has no means of making his listeners see eye to eye with himself. The risk he runs may be too great. Realizing as we must that all this ferment of suggestion-seeking has ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... your minds' desire, Then probe, in tremor, your souls' intent; With hands and hearts clean and pure, aspire To Him who knows what, within, you meant. Yet, thither, mortals, Your way is wending, Where, on the portals, Till time be ending, There stands this sentence, without reprieve: Here all shall ...
— The Angel of Death • Johan Olof Wallin
... they are often uncertain. Beseeching our grandees of Witland that, as when formerly Apollo had distributed all the treasures of his poetical exchequer to his favourites, little hulchbacked Aesop got for himself the office of apologue-monger; in the same manner, since I do not aspire higher, they would not deny me that of puny rhyparographer, or riffraff follower of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... will at first, just like a beggar, crave One penny or one halfpenny to have; And if you grant its first suit, 'twill aspire From pence to pounds, and so will still mount higher To the whole soul.'—Bunyan's ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... members of any secret society, association or organization, whatever. Beside the white man at the hospitable board, they cannot, they dare not sit; and to a seat in the white man's parlor, and social converse, they dare not aspire. The carpet of the white man was not spread for them, and around his cheerful hearth, before his crackling fire, there is no place for them. They are not suffered to participate in any of the festivities or amusements of their more highly favored white brethren. If they ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... tired of rapture and love's desire; Love is a flaming heart, and its flames aspire Till they cloud the soul in the smoke ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... be devoted to Him in good earnest. Let us cast everything besides out of our hearts. He would possess them alone. Beg this favor of Him. If we do what we can on our parts, we shall soon see that change wrought in us which we aspire after. I cannot thank Him sufficiently for the relaxation He has vouchsafed you. I hope from His mercy the favor to see Him within a few days.[4] Let us pray for ...
— The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life • Herman Nicholas
... they're all in the same boat—let alone the inevitable breakdown or petering out of each, necessarily produces a fresh crop of such waste and refuse material. And in that a man like myself, who does not aspire to cure or to construct, but merely to alleviate and to pick up the pieces, finds ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... that shift below. Looking upon the tribes of earth, I have seen how the multitude are swayed, and tracked the steps that lead weakness into power; and fain would I be the ruler of one who, if abased, shall aspire to rule." ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... despatches, as we have said, contained the wish that Mary Stuart should espouse Leicester; but this proposal could not be taken seriously. Leicester, whose personal worth was besides sufficiently mediocre, was of birth too inferior to aspire to the hand of the daughter of so many kings; thus Mary replied that such an alliance would not become her. Meanwhile, something strange and ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... successful practice; and they also show, not a whit less forcibly, what awful sacrifices may be exacted from a nation ignorant that such a science exists. And such ignorance is widespread. How seldom do we hear a knowledge of strategy referred to as an indispensable acquirement in those who aspire to high command? How often is it repeated, although in so doing the speakers betray their own shortcomings, that strategy is a mere matter of common-sense? Yet the plain truth is that strategy is not only the determining ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... commons will insensibly encroach upon the pretensions of the crown. But if in the time of a minority, the power of the government should be divided among different competitors for the regency, the parliaments and people will find it still more easy to acquire and ascertain the liberty at which they aspire, because they will have the balance of power in their hands, and be able to make either scale preponderate. I could say a great deal more upon this subject; and I have some remarks to make relating to the methods which might be taken in the case of a fresh rupture with ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... will do much; but the want of one or more of these will not invalidate the election, nor the union of all four insure it. It must be very pleasant to serve in the compagnie d'elite. They have privileges to which the Line may not aspire. It does not much matter what they do. Their victories make them no enemies, and their defeats raise them up hosts of sympathizers and apologists. When they err gravely, if you hint at the misdemeanor, a "true believer" looks at you indignantly, not to ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... of unusual earnestness and sweetness of spirit, were one or the other of them at the boy's side throughout this period. The ideal they held before him was the simple ideal of the early American, that if a boy is upright and industrious he may aspire to any place within the gift of the country. The boy's nature told him they were right. Everything he read confirmed their teachings, and he cultivated, in every way open to him, his passion to know and ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... vehement, throwing his head up, shooting his words at the ceiling as if they had been Greek fire. Now, as he got up to leave her, his eyes dwelt earnestly on her. "It will be a pleasure, to which I shall aspire—that of meeting you ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... do an injustice to a great man who is now no more, a man who did so much for the world and who could spell the longest word without hesitation, but I speak of these things just as I would expect others to criticise my work. If one aspire to be a member of the literati of his day, he must expect to be criticised. I have been criticised myself. When I was in public life,—as a justice of the peace in the Rocky Mountains,—a man came in one day and criticised me so that I ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... capacity of receiving more of God by communion with him. Other creatures have already all they will have,—all they can have,—of conformity to him, but man is made liker than all, and is fitted and fashioned to aspire to more likeness and conformity, so that his soul may shine more and ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning |
