"Attain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 15:38 And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which I desired: but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto. ...
— Deuteronomical Books of the Bible - Apocrypha • Anonymous
... body; that this Bad Christ had Magdalen as his concubine. They were not agreed as to the future of man. Some denied the existence of souls, some said that the souls were fallen angels inhabiting men's bodies, others that the soul was pure and could only attain to blessedness by emancipation from the body, all the ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... fact, none but advanced Mental Alchemists have been able to attain the degree of power necessary to control the grosser physical conditions, such as the control of the elements of Nature; the production or cessation of tempests; the production and cessation of earthquakes and other great physical phenomena. But that such men have existed, and do exist today, is ...
— The Kybalion - A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece • Three Initiates
... god. Full in their face the lifted bow he bore, And quiver'd deaths, a formidable store; Before his feet the rattling shower he threw, And thus, terrific, to the suitor-crew: "One venturous game this hand hath won to-day; Another, princes! yet remains to play: Another mark our arrow must attain. Phoebus, assist! nor be the labor vain." Swift as the word the parting arrow sings; And bears thy fate, Antinous, on its wings. Wretch that he was, of unprophetic soul! High in his hands he rear'd the golden bowl: E'en then ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... "words" he has whimpered for in full measure, that so at last she may attain to asking if, that morning, he would have "pored upon it?" She knows he would not; then why pore upon it now? For him, it is here, as much as in the ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... because of his growing understanding of all kinds of people with their varying experiences. We send our young people to Europe that they may lose their provincialism and be able to judge their fellows by a more universal test, as we send them to college that they may attain the cultural background and a larger outlook; all of these it is possible to acquire in other ways, as this member of the woman's ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... scholar—so reputed, and justly; but one of life's most important lessons had passed her by. She had never learned that to receive, one must give; to be loved, one must love; to attain, one must reach out. It never occurred to her to weigh her own shortcomings and throw them into the balance with those of her enemies. She spent no time in introspection, self examination. She set a high standard on her own virtues, and, ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... can enter heaven only as sealed to some devout member of the Mormon church "for time and eternity," and that the space around the earth is filled with spirits seeking some "tabernacles of clay" by means of which they may attain salvation. Through the teaching of this doctrine, which is accepted as explicitly by the membership of the Mormon church at large as is any doctrine by a Protestant denomination, the Mormon women believe ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... that I would invite your co-operation; it is to that mighty task that I would ask you to address yourselves. At least believe in the possibility of it; at least raise your eyes to that great stature to which it may be our Society shall attain. For if we can rise to it, then it means that we shall be builders of the next civilisation, that our hands shall take part in the making of the foundation of the humanity that is still to be born; it means that we shall be its forerunners, its heralds, that we shall ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... attain to a knowledge of the truth at once, yet should we never lose an opportunity of making a vocabulary of such words as we know to be correct. This should be the case from one consideration alone; for how gratifying it is, when visiting ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... criticism of Buerger's poems, which had inflamed party strife and embittered the last years of Buerger himself; but even Schiller admits that Buerger is as much superior to all his rivals as he is inferior to the ideal he should have striven to attain. ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... interposed Mr. Brownlow. 'But reflect whether sending them anywhere is likely to attain the object we have ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... conclusions which he draws from them. Animals and plants certainly possess many characteristics which cannot be explained by means of his theory alone. The conclusion will probably be finally arrived at, that nature is inexhaustible and many-sided, even in the lines on which it proceeds to attain this or that end. ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... striking appearance of the ibex is chiefly owing to the noble horns: which nature has bestowed upon it. In full-grown animals the horns, which curve gracefully over the shoulders, are from three to four feet in length along the curve, and about eleven inches in circumference at the base. Very few attain a greater length than four feet; but I have heard of their being three inches longer. Their beards, six or eight inches in length, arc of shaggy black hair. The females, light greyish-brown in colour, are hardly a third the size of the males; ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... through life under the impulse of the feelings, with no real power of self-restraint, is indeed not without its charm, and in a well-organised society, with good surroundings and few temptations, it may attain a high degree of beauty; but its besetting failings will steadily grow; without fortitude, perseverance and principle, it has no recuperative energy, and it will often end in a moral catastrophe which natures in other respects much ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... in the risk and recklessness of our operations; in the long deferred and final joy of our possession; but this is a kind of pleasure which the man of boundless means never knows. The buying of pictures affords us an excellent illustration on this point. Men of the type of Balzac's Cousin Pons attain to rapture in the process because they are poor. They have to walk weary miles and wait long weeks to get upon the track of their treasure; to use all their knowledge of art and men to circumvent the malignity of dealers; to experience ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... (Connecticut), referring to it as a fine place both for plantation and trade.[33] Afterwards, some Mohegan Indians visiting Plymouth in 1631 made similar representations. Their chief, Uncas, an able, unscrupulous, and ambitious savage, made it his great ambition to attain the headship of his aggressive western neighbors, the Pequots. The only result had been to turn the resentment of the Pequots against himself; and he sought the protection of the Plymouth government ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... down again in his chair, staring apprehensively on all sides, with the passion of some blind man, deluded in the belief that by his furious and continued effort he will attain sight. The Father knew well that he sought to pierce the veil of the invisible, and have knowledge of the thing ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... the war from the rock of conviction that Germany after its deeds has a right to demand broader room on the earth and greater possibilities of action and these things we must attain." ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... sown they produce seedlings, or free stocks, and upon these are budded or grafted the fine varieties which compose our orchards. They are known as standard trees; they come into bearing more slowly, and eventually attain the normal size familiar to us all. Standard cherries are worked on seedlings of the Mazzard, which Barry describes as a "lofty, rapid-growing, pyramidal-headed tree." I should advise the reader to indulge in the dwarfs very charily, and chiefly ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... and night— in fact, I will strain every nerve to make Zina happy. Her life will be a splendid one! You may ask, am I able to do it. I am, brother! When a man devotes every minute to one thought, it's not difficult for him to attain his object. But let us go to Zina; it will be a joy to ...
— The Duel and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... qualities of a good aerostat. Her dimensions allowed of her rising to the greatest height a balloon could attain; her impermeability enabled her to remain for an indefinite time in the atmosphere; her solidity would defy any dilation of gas or violence of wind or rain; her capacity gave her sufficient ascensional force to lift with all their accessories ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... chairs of Astronomy had been founded in the fourteenth century, and that their incumbents were bound to sign Ptolemaic articles. In that case, with every respect for the efforts of persons thus hampered to attain and expound the truth, I think men of common sense would go ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... very scornful words, and sent a scornful message to him about it. He gone, after supper, I to bed, being mightily pleased with my wife's playing so well upon the flageolet, and I am resolved she shall learn to play upon some instrument, for though her eare be bad, yet I see she will attain any thing to be ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the last method are interested in human beings, not so much by present attractions as by their capabilities as intelligent, immortal beings; by a high belief of what every mind may attain in an immortal existence; by anxieties for its temptations and dangers, and often by the perception of errors and faults which threaten its ruin. The first two modes are adopted by the great mass of society; the last is the office of those few scattered stars in the sky of ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... that the object of this extraordinary course has been to influence public opinion. It seems essential to the views of the present executive of the United States, to put down the present national bank, and to erect another on its ruins; and this favourite purpose it hopes to attain by bringing the president's personal and official influence to bear on the question; and, under the forms of the constitution, to appeal from his party in congress, to his ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... has yet discovered a plan to meet the requirements of the millions who live now, no plan by which they might attain similar physical proportion. Some increase of longevity, some slight improvement in the general health is promised, and these are great things, but far, far beneath the ideal. Probably the whole mode ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... Antonetta Melrose, of L2,000 a year, to a pension for Thomas Dixon and his wife, and various other pensions and small annuities; Henry, Earl Tatham, and Victoria, Countess Tatham, appointed trustees, and to act as guardians, till the said Felicia Melrose should attain the age of twenty-four; no mention of any other person at all; the whole vast property, precisely as it had passed from Melrose to Faversham, just taken up and dropped in the lap of this little creature with the dangling feet without reservation, or deduction—now that it was done, and not ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mother-quick and the father-quick, and that though in his wholeness he is rapt away beyond the old mother-father connections, they are still there within him, consummated but not consumed. Nor does it alter the fact that very few people surpass their parents nowadays, and attain any individuality beyond them. Most men are half-born slaves: the little soul they are born with just atrophies, and merely the organism emanates, the new self, the new soul, the new swells into ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... very high regard for good women. Mrs. Custance is not a woman, merely a psychological problem to me. She cares for only one person—herself, and that self she regards as a celestial body around which all other lesser bodies should revolve. To attain this necessary consummation she adopts a chameleon character, altering herself to suit all who approach her. To you she is sweet, and inclined to gush; to me, a woman whose interests are in the stern affairs of life; to another an ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... Indian. Fortunately everything passed off as we wished. When all was ready, I launched three pirogues, strongly fastened together, side by side, with some Indians in the centre, armed with lances, and with long bamboos, with which they could touch the bottom. At last, all measures having been taken to attain my end, without risk of accident, my Indians began to explore the ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... months!" he exclaims. "I am not yet an artist, though, on the flute. The technique of the instrument has many depths which I had not thought of before, and I would not call myself a virtuoso within a year." He suffers agony because he does not attain a point in harmony which the audience did not notice. Writing of the temptation of flute soloists, he once said: "They have rarely been able to resist the fatal facility of the instrument, and have usually addressed themselves to winning the applause of concert ...
— Sidney Lanier • Edwin Mims
... commerce despises all mediocrity—care is preferred to enjoyment—and the ends of life are sacrificed to the means! It has always been the foible of man not to be contented with the good he possesses, but to look forward to happiness in the anticipation of something which he hopes to attain. Thus, few congratulate themselves on the comforts they enjoy, or consider the consequences of losing them; but, neglectful of blessings in hand, rush forward in quest of others which they may never be able to obtain, and which, when possessed, are ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... resource between the utter desiccation of all the water-courses in summer and an outpouring in winter which carries away trees, crops and arable earth, presenting the farmer with a result of boulders and sand. The rocks sound beneath our animals' feet for an hour or two: we dip into a ravine and attain ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... And on the other hand, there is nothing of which you can be so convinced as that love, and humility, and meekness, and purity, and benevolence, and brotherly kindness, are your true happiness, or would be, if you could only attain to all these beatitudes. Well, Jesus Christ has attained to them all. And Jesus Christ came into this world at first, and He still comes into it by His Word and by His Spirit in order that you may attain to all His goodness and all His truth and may thus escape forever from all your own ignorance ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser
... the sepoys, too, on our right, running fast and shouting, but we reached the centre long before they, and the mob following, could attain to the end of the line nearest to them; and just then, as I glanced to my left, I saw the rajah clap spurs to his horse, as if to ride up, but he reined instantly, and his two companions followed his example; dignity forbade this. We ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... city first of all, and not to leave a single man living in it. He promised to join them at the first light, in order to help them should it prove necessary, as was the case. But, since nothing is done contrary to God's will or permission, it was not possible for the pirate Limahon to attain his end with the four hundred soldiers, as he thought to do; for all that night the land-breeze blew, becoming ever stronger as night deepened, and proving contrary to their desires. Consequently they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... recite only those wishes of the nation, which may be in our power to attain; I think they might be summed up in these ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... his sermons and a keener gratitude for the heavenly generosity with which he bestowed on her the confirmation ticket. Free as she is from fancies, her conception of the daily life of her clergyman shows amusingly enough that she can attain a very fair pitch of idealism. We remember the story of a certain parson of our acquaintance who owned to a meek little buttercup his habit of carrying a book in his pocket for reading in leisure hours. "Ah, yes," replied the eager little auditor, with a hush of ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... come to pass, and to stand before the SON of Man." They have not, with Paul, counted "all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of CHRIST JESUS the Lord," and hence they do not "attain unto" that resurrection from among the dead, which Paul felt he might miss, but aimed ...
— Union And Communion - or Thoughts on the Song of Solomon • J. Hudson Taylor
... Gargantuan candelabra, and the huge "baobab," of unwieldy bulk, seems to stand as the sentinel stretching out its bare arms to protect those who shelter beneath. These trees are the great feature of the country, owing to the enormous size they attain, and to the fact that, being the slowest-growing trees known, their ages can only be reckoned by thousands of years. Except these kings of the forest, the trees indigenous to the land are somewhat dwarfed, but cacti of all kinds flourish, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... vain remembering Draw nigh, and age be drear, yet in the spring We meet and kiss, whatever hour beset Wherein all hours attain to harvesting,— So very lightly ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... surface, in the mathematical sense, but as a limit to which, in the general fluid mass, ascending currents carry the physical or chemical phenomena of incandescence."[440] Uprushing floods of mixed vapours with strong affinities—say of calcium or sodium and oxygen—at last attain a region cool enough to permit their combination; a fine dust of solid or liquid compound particles (of lime or soda, for example) there collects into the photospheric clouds, and descending by its own weight in torrents of incandescent rain, is dissociated by the fierce heat below, and replaced ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... what Mariana would have done had there been no interference, for she had worked herself into one of those furies which women of her type can attain when they feel the occasion demands it, a paroxysm none the less dangerous because its foundation is histrionic. But Rameau threw his arms about her; Mr. Percy came hastily to his assistance, and Ward and I sprang in between her and the ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... royal Audiencia of Mexico. In my judgment it is entertaining, profitable, and worthy of publication. The author has strictly obeyed the laws of history therein, in the excellent arrangement of his work, in which he shows his soundness of intellect and a concise style to which few attain, together with a true exposition of the subject matter, as it was written by one who was so fully conversant with it, during the years that he governed those islands. I have accordingly affixed my signature to this instrument here at the professed house ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... and on the flank, and only the incessant fire of the scouts sufficed to keep them in check. A second savage attempted to gain the eminence which commanded the position where the scouts were posted, but just as he was about to attain his object, McClelland saw him turn a summerset, and, with a frightful yell, fall down the hill, a corpse. The mysterious agent had again interposed in their behalf. The sun was now disappearing behind the western hills, ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... no opportunities, in a land where thousands of poor boys become rich men, where newsboys go to Congress, and where those born in the lowest stations attain the highest positions? The world is all gates, all opportunities to him who will use them. But, like Bunyan's Pilgrim in the dungeon of Giant Despair's castle, who had the key of deliverance all the time with him but had forgotten it, we fail to rely wholly upon the ability to advance all that is ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... bed-rock fact, the broad and solid bottom for a cheerful philosophy. To know that they can get on without you (more knowledge than many ever attain!) is the beginning of wisdom; and to learn that you can get on without them—at the close of the day, and out here on your hill in Hingham—this is the ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... attain a lofty position in the world. I am the younger. He paid teachers to instruct me, and I learned a great deal; but it was dry work, and I sought change, after days of study, in beer-cellars, among a few choice boosers. And my eyes were weak, and close ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... simple people often have. It is the oversubtle man who makes the most egregious mistakes, because most of us have not time to be subtle. He never suspected Eve of being a great authoress, and he never attributed to her any desire to attain that doubtful pinnacle of fame. But he saw very plainly the immense advantage to be gathered in this time from her talent. In his simplicity he hoped that something would turn up for him to do, in a world which has no pity nor charity for that which is old, ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... Department in relation to the establishment of the overland mail route from the Mississippi River to San Francisco, Cal. The route was selected with my full concurrence, as the one, in my judgment, best calculated to attain the important objects contemplated ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... to hide; She smiles on those who Mount Parnassus climb; On those who fail, she casts disdainful frown. O, fickle world, which kneels before success No matter how its Idol was enthroned! Hence, one to pow'r attain should scruple not, For it were balm which cureth ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... child up in her arms and cried, This is my child that moved in Etain's side, Thy child and Etain's: I the unknown ideal And she the rich, the incarnate, breathing real Are one; for me thou never canst attain But by the love I yield thee for Etain; Even as through Christ thy soul allays its dearth, Love's heaven is only compassed upon earth; And by that love, in thine own Etain's eyes Thou shalt find all ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... Christian audience, By knowledge of things which are but transitory, And here for a time, of much more congruence, Advantage might spring, by the search of causes heavenly, As those matters are that the gospel specify. Without whose knowledge no man to the truth can fall, Nor ever attain to the life perpetual, For he that knoweth not the living God eternal The Father, the Son and also the Holy Ghost, And what Christ suffered for redemption of us all, What he commanded, and taught in every coast, And what he ...
— Everyman and Other Old Religious Plays, with an Introduction • Anonymous
... chief delight lay in the attempt to embody, in what seemed to him the natural form of verse, the thoughts in him constantly moving at least in the direction of the ideal, even when he was most conscious of his inability to attain to the utterance of them. But it was only in the retirement of his own chamber that he attempted their embodiment; of all things, he shrank from any communion whatever concerning these cherished matters. Nor, indeed, had he any friends who could tempt ...
— Far Above Rubies • George MacDonald
... alike can chuckle with satisfaction—for Tom Sawyer had discovered a great law of human action without knowing it, namely, that in order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. Huck's reasoning about chicken stealing—the exquisitely comic shifting of ground from morality to expediency—is a striking example of the best type of Mark Twain's humour. Following his father's example, Huck would occasionally ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... continue to function efficiently with an expanded membership, the Treaty of Nice (in force as of 1 February 2003) set forth rules streamlining the size and procedures of EU institutions. An effort to establish an EU constitution, begun in October 2004, failed to attain unanimous ratification. A new effort, undertaken in June 2007, calls for the creation of an Intergovernmental Conference to form a political agreement, known as the Reform Treaty, which is to serve as a constitution. ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... lights in many a secret chamber shine Of thy gaunt house, and gusts of song have blown Like blossoms out to me that sat alone! And I have waited well for thee to show If any share were mine,—and now I go! Nothing I leave, and if I naught attain I shall but come into mine own again!" Thus I to Life, and ceased, and spake no more, But turning, straightway, sought a certain door In the rear wall. Heavy it was, and low And dark,—a way by which none e'er would go That other exit had, ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... there dwelt within him a certain disposition, which, at times, removed him to quite a distance from the arena in which commonplace people go through their prescribed performances. He would come to a determination, generally quite suddenly, to attain a desired end in his own way, without any reference to traditionary or conventional methods; and the more original and startling these plans the ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... shining plateau, where "beauty pitches her tents", and the Ideal beckons. Favorable environment is the steaming atmosphere that fosters, forces and develops germs which might not survive the struggle against adverse influences, in uncongenial habitat; but nature moulds some types that attain perfection through perpetual elementary warfare which hardens the fibre, and strengthens the hold; as in those invincible algx towering in the stormy straits of Tierra del Fuego, swept from Antartic homes toward the equator,—defying ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... yellow, white, and red, two or three flags, and various other small flowers; but altogether the flora of the pampas is the poorest in species of any fertile district on the globe. On moist clayey ground flourishes the stately pampa grass, Gynerium argenteum, the spears of which often attain a height of eight or nine feet. I have ridden through many leagues of this grass with the feathery spikes high as my head, and often higher. It would be impossible for me to give anything like an adequate idea of the exquisite loveliness, at certain times ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... chariots that, if their masters are overpowered by the number of the enemy, they may have a ready retreat to their own troops. Thus they display in battle the speed of horse, [together with] the firmness of infantry; and by daily practice and exercise attain to such expertness that they are accustomed, even on a declining and steep place, to check their horses at full speed, and manage and turn them in an instant and run along the pole, and stand on the yoke, ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... up his mind not to forego this new advantage which chance threw in his way. Pressure and pressure alone could enable him to attain his end, and he was applying it unmercifully. Well, she had done with him now, it did not matter to her; but she could not help faintly wondering at the extraordinary tenacity and hardness of purpose which his action showed. Then she turned her mind to the consideration of ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... feeling compelled to mount aloft, and attain that "bad eminence," the main-royal mast head, while the slender spar was whipping backwards and forwards with every plunge of the ship into a heavy head sea, and the visible effect produced by every vibration causing me to fear an inverted ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... like pride in a good family, and is a strong factor in maintaining the standards of its people. Of course the past may be one of which no one is proud and which they may prefer to forget, but this is a spur to new endeavor as it is to a family to attain a new status. ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... on such a diet can no more attain to wisdom than a kitchen scullion can attain to a keen sense of smell or avoid stinking of the grease. With your indulgence, I will speak out: you—teachers —are chiefly responsible for the decay of oratory. With your well modulated and empty tones you have so labored for rhetorical effect that ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter
... intellect, nor warmth of heart, nor vivacity of temper; that he was, in short, a mere mild, inoffensive, good sort of man, studious and industrious in his art, not without a feeling for the excellence he wanted power to attain.[W] ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... distinguished the old from the new ministry: the former had wished to preserve, the majority of the latter were resolved to destroy, the throne; and the means by which each sought to attain its end were as diametrically opposite as the ends themselves. Bertrand and De Lessart, the ministers who, in the late administration, had enjoyed most of the king and queen's confidence, had been studious to preserve peace, believing that policy to be absolutely essential for the safety of Louis ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... diameter. So successful was this experiment, that, when steam was turned on the first time, the boat at once moved at a speed of upwards of ten miles an hour, without a single alteration being requisite in her machinery. Not only did she attain this considerable speed, but her power to tow larger vessels was found to be so great that schooners of one hundred and forty tons' burden were propelled by her at the rate of seven miles an hour; and the American packet-ship Toronto was towed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... royal proselyte, they fondly expected the cure of every evil, and the restoration of every blessing; and instead of disapproving of the ardor of their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously confessed, that he was ambitious to attain a situation in which he might be useful to his country and to his religion. But this religion was viewed with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose capricious passions alternately saved and threatened the life of Julian. The arts of magic and divination ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... familiar with the least details. Amid all these fete days there was one day of real happiness to me: it was that on which Prince Eugene, whose kindness to me I have never forgotten, was proclaimed viceroy of Italy. Truly, no one could be more worthy than he of a rank so elevated, if to attain it only nobility, generosity, courage, and skill in the art of governing, were needed; for never did prince more sincerely desire the prosperity of the people confided to his care. I have often observed how truly happy he was, and what genuine delight beamed from ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... to the life and work of Simon Bolivar, the great South American Liberator, will attain their object if the reader understands and appreciates how unusual a man Bolivar was. Every citizen of the United States of America must respect and venerate his sacred memory, as the Liberator and Father of five countries, the man who assured the independence of the rest ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... authorized him, "If thou findest such a one make all necessary promises in our name. Only don't loiter; we must attain our end ...
— King of the Jews - A story of Christ's last days on Earth • William T. Stead
... feigned to have concealed the treasure beneath the soil in order that his sons might become rich by the culture of it, which they necessarily, though unwittingly, effected in their search for the gold; and thus our only happiness consists in our efforts to attain the same, though the instant we become sensible of this, we find that we have then indeed exhausted the cup, and like the rest that have done so before us, take a long breath, and sigh, "all is vanity!" and begin to think more ...
— Confessions of an Etonian • I. E. M.
... to a superiority you can never attain to, albeit you are Finot!" he went on. "Admit this gentleman forthwith to be one of the great men to whom the future belongs; he is one of us! So witty and so handsome, can he fail to succeed by your quibuscumque viis? Here he stands, in his good Milan armor, his strong sword ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... essence—an effluence, as it were, from God; and if knowledge is communicable through other channels than those of the outward senses, what is there which should forbid belief in the most immediate intercourse between, the soul and its Creator, and in a direct intuition of spiritual truth? We may attain a certain comprehension of the Deity, 'proportionate to our measure; as we may approach near to a mountain, and touch it with our hands, though we cannot encompass it all round and enclasp it within our arms.' In fact, Cudworth's general train of reasoning and of feeling brought him into ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... not long to stay; and he had overcoloured the pictures in order that the impression should be vivid and indelible when he was gone. He had meant to bless, for, to his mind, to shine, to do big things, to achieve notoriety, to attain power, "to make the band play when you come," was the true philosophy of life. And as this philosophy, successful in his case, was accompanied by habits of life which would bear the closest inspection by the dean and chapter, it was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... honors, are immortal in the records of the church, and are written in the book of life; for the light of faith, and the grace of the Almighty, extinguishing in their breasts the sparks of worldly ambition, inspired them with a most vehement ardor to attain the perfection of Christian virtue, and changed their family into a house of saints; three brothers were at the same time eminently holy bishops, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Peter of Sebaste; and their eldest sister, St. Macrina, was the spiritual ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... sensitive, possessed of eyes which have not lost the lustre and the wonder, and of ears used only to sweet sounds; but if their philosophy is sane and stable, large enough to understand and to forgive, they will come to no harm and attain comprehension. If not, they will see things and hear things which hurt, and they will suffer greatly, and lose faith in man—which is the greatest evil that may happen them. Such should be sedulously cherished, and it were well to depute this to their ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... its own sake, according to the universal opinion of mankind, is happiness; yet men, for the most part, fail in the pursuit of this end, either because they do not form a right idea of the nature of happiness, or because they do not make use of proper means to attain it. Since it is every man's interest to be happy through the whole of life, it is the wisdom of every one to employ philosophy in the search of felicity without delay; and there cannot be a greater folly, than to be always beginning ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... tirtha of the great river (Sarasvati), shall obtain the great fruit of a horse sacrifice! From this day there will be no fear in this tirtha from snakes and wild beasts! By small exertions, again, one shall attain to great result here!' Having said these words, that Muni of great energy proceeded to heaven. Even thus the adorable Arshtishena of great energy became crowned with success. In that very tirtha in the Krita age, Sindhudwipa of great energy, and Devapi also, O monarch, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... fingers, yet smoking on the floor; Westcott, his clothes torn, his face bruised by blows, breathing heavily, went slowly backward, step by step, to the farther wall, conscious of nothing now but the savagely hostile faces of these new enemies. Lacy, staggering as though drunk, managed to attain his feet, hate, the desire for revenge, yielding him strength. This was his crowd, and his mind was quick to grasp ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish
... modern ideas and a newer civilization. They introduced the Renaissance, which was a literary movement that began in Italy in the fourteenth century. It was believed that vital knowledge was gained by knowing oneself, and that the best way to attain this was to study poetry, philosophy, history and all knowledge that was created by the spirit of man. Unfortunately, the knowledge of letters in Italy tended to paganize its adherents. Infidelity spread and immorality abounded in all ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... always too sudden for mortal eyes, and brings pain with its comfort. The Rockies have a remoter, yet a kindlier, beauty than the Alps. Their rock is of a browner colour, and such rugged peaks and crowns as do not attain snow continually suggest gigantic castellations, or the ramparts of Titans. Eastward, the foothills are few and low, and the mountains stand superbly. The heart lifts to see them. They guard the sunset. Into this rocky ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... death's chill seized her; and that one of them Did compass in the other's beam; and both In such sort whirl around, that each should tend With opposite motion and, conceiving thus, Of that true constellation, and the dance Twofold, that circled me, he shall attain As 't were the shadow; for things there as much Surpass our usage, as the swiftest heav'n Is swifter than the Chiana. There was sung No Bacchus, and no Io Paean, but Three Persons in the Godhead, and in one Substance that nature and ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... thoroughfare. The rose bushes from the garden almost lapped the water as they passed. Behind, the long low cottage, the deserted dinner-table, the smooth lawn with its beds of scarlet geraniums and drooping lilac shrubs in the background, seemed like a scene from fairyland, to attain a perfection of ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Even so This way the Chamois leapt: her nimble feet Have baffled me; my gains to-day will scarce Repay my break-neck travail.—What is here? Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reached 60 A height which none even of our mountaineers, Save our best hunters, may attain: his garb Is goodly, his mien manly, and his air Proud as a free-born peasant's, at this distance: I ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... hands in clearing and cultivating those very fields where her feet loved to run; how in its pride of strength it had handled the scythe and the sickle and the flail, with a grace and efficiency that no other could attain; and how in happy manhood that strong hand had fondled and sheltered and led the little children that now had grown up and were gone!—Strength and activity, ay, and the fruits of them, were passed away;—his children were dead;—his race was run;—the shock of corn was in full season, ready ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... in 1900 a form of government based on that of the American territories. Porto Rico remained, however, unincorporated into the Union, and it was long doubtful whether it would remain a dependency or would ultimately attain statehood. In 1917, however, the degree of self-government was increased, and the inhabitants were made American citizens. It now seems probable that the island will ultimately become ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... do not like these partings. They always sadden my heart. They make me long for that life where partings shall be no more. Oh, my dear ones, do you all strive on to attain to that blessed life! Think what would be our woeful grief—if such can assail us there; if memory of the past may be allowed us—should we find any one of our dear ones absent—of you who now stand around me! I speak to you all—not more to one than to another—absent through his ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... held by the garrisons of a foreign power, the work of settling the northwestern territory was bound to go forward slowly and painfully; but while the navigation of the Mississippi was barred, even the settlements already founded could not attain to their proper prosperity ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... of the soul, always potential within, become of value only as they are realised and used. Evolution implies always involution. The substance of all we shall ever attain or be, is within us now, waiting for realisation and thereby expression. The soul carries its own keys to all wisdom and to ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... professor with the damnation of devils, with the damnation of hell, and therefore it is a deadly, deadly sin. Now against this deadly sin is set the grace of humility; that comely garment, for so the apostle calls it, saying, "be clothed with humility." But the question is now, how we should attain to, and live in, the exercise of this blessed and comely grace? to which the apostle answers, Fear; be afraid with godly fear, and thence will flow humility—"Be not high-minded, but fear." That is, Fear, or be continually ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... itself to the new ideas, found that it could not attain to satisfactory representation merely by form and colour, but that it required light and shadow and effects of space. Indeed, venial faults of drawing are perhaps the least disturbing, while faults of perspective, of spacing, ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... in the throes of despair saw the plump little hand of Miss Jennie Tupper reach out and casually close over the offending pearl stud. He was saved, saved by the miracle of compassion and forgiveness that lifts women to those sublime heights where mere men cannot attain! ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... personal fascination—of the suggestiveness of ever having been a great man. Lear is a ruin—but he has been a Titan; the delight of all hearts no less than the monarch of all minds. The actor who does not invest him with that inherent, overwhelming personal fascination does not attain to his altitude. The cruel afflictions that occur in the tragedy do not of themselves signify: the pity is only that they should occur to him. That is the spring of all the pathos. In Salvini's Lear there were beautiful moments and magnificent bits of action. "I gave you all" and ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... helped a man, yet if they have done for him only what possibly from his own abilities he might have effected for himself, his good luck will excite less attention and the instances be less remembered. That clever men should attain their objects seems natural, and we neglect the circumstances that perhaps produced that success of themselves without the intervention of skill or foresight; but we dwell on the fact and remember it, as something strange, when the same happens to a weak or ignorant ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... I believe one can be positive all at once. We must work hard and insist over and over again before we can attain the positive attitude and having attained it, we have to lose it and gain it again, lose it and gain it again, many times before we get the habit of making all difficulties of mind and body negative, and our healthy attitude toward ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... innkeeper, the hurried departure, and the progress, perchance at a more rapid gait than usual, to the sleeping quarters in another section of the town. Arrived there, safe in the refuge of his commodious bed-room, sage argument would follow in the effort to attain persuasion that the terrifying vision had been but "the effect of accidental causes." Be sure, though, that our philosopher, dreading a return of the specter if he permitted food to pass his lips, would go ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... of the country, brought originally to Europe by the Carthaginians,—the Roman cicer, which gave its name to the greatest of the Latin orators. All other available vegetables are thrown in; on days of high gala a piece of meat is added, and some forehanded housewives attain the climax of luxury by flavoring the compound with a link of sausage. The mother brings the dinner and her tawny brood of nestlings. A shady spot is selected for the feast. The father dips his wooden spoon first into the vapory bowl, and mother and babes follow ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... the secrets of womanhood only though their souls. Others obey some family pride (which in our days, and to our shame, decreases steadily); these devote themselves to the welfare of a brother, or to orphan nephews; they are mothers while remaining virgins. Such old maids attain to the highest heroism of their sex by consecrating all feminine feelings to the help of sorrow. They idealize womanhood by renouncing the rewards of woman's destiny, accepting its pains. They live surrounded by the splendour of their devotion, and men respectfully bow the head before their faded ...
— The Vicar of Tours • Honore de Balzac
... hardly believe his senses; it was so strange that a young man like him should attain to this high rank. He wanted to "crow;" and perhaps he would have done so, if he had not considered that he must maintain the ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... contributions it collects from others than on its own demesne. As pride therefore is seldom without arrogance, so is this never to be found without insolence. The arrogant man must be insolent in order to attain his own ends; and, to convince and remind men of the superiority he affects, will naturally, by ill-words, actions, and gestures, endeavour to throw the despised person at as much distance ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... imperial crown of these realms should descend to any of the late prince's sons, being under the age of eighteen years, his mother, the princess dowager of Wales, should be guardian of his person, and regent of these kingdoms, until he should attain the age of majority, with such powers and limitations as should appear necessary and expedient for these purposes. This message produced a very affectionate address, promising to take the affair into their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Christopher issued out without any harm or hurt. And when the king saw that, he commanded that he should be bound to a strong stake, and that he should be through-shotten with arrows with forty knights archers. But none of the knights might attain him, for the arrows hung in the air about, nigh him, without touching. Then the king weened that he had been through-shotten with the arrows of the knights, and addressed him for to go to him. And one of the arrows returned suddenly from the air and smote ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... weary you with farther instances, beyond giving the sequel of the case of catalepsy of which I have above mentioned some particulars. You will see in it a shadowing out of most of the other powers, which I have said are occasionally manifested by persons in trance, which sometimes attain an extraordinary vigour and compass, and which are maintained, or are maintainable, for several years, being manifested for that time, though not without caprice and occasional entire failures, on the patient reverting ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... there for a few days in 1880, brought back the news that a certain young lady who was just beginning the study of Hegel the year before, had now got up to the second intention, and hoped in time to attain the sixth. I never got far enough in Mr. Harris's lectures to discover what Hegelian intentions were; but my friend spoke of them as if they were something like degrees in Masonry. In 1905 I visited Concord for the first and only time in twenty-six ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... group, a deathly silence, during which the aged Landsturm sentry pulled himself up stiffly at attention, or into the nearest approach to that position to which he could attain, and smiled covertly in the direction of the sergeant who had browbeaten him. Others of those somewhat senile guards, who at the sound of their officer's voice had assumed that position of respect demanded of all German soldiers, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... is the paradise of hotels. In no other city do they flourish in such numbers, and nowhere else do they attain such a degree of excellence. The hotels of New York naturally take the lead of all others in America, and are regarded by all who have visited them ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... attention, Where shall we find an object for the tremendous judgment to be inflicted by the third and last woe? This question requires a solution. It demands it; and he who succeeds in the application of history to solve this apparent enigma in the Apocalypse, will be able to attain to a satisfactory, a certain, understanding of much that is yet to most readers as if the "sealed book" were to this day in the "right hand of Him that sitteth on the throne." Let us humbly attempt ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... splendour, wherein these brethren reign'd, How well they tended knighthood, what worship they attain'd, How they thro' life were merry, and mock'd at woe and bale— Who'd seek all this to tell you, would never ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... at the Priory. Although he was apparently fond of his little companion, and endeavoured on every occasion to render himself agreeable to her, all his habitual cunning could not conceal from her his vile temper, or the unscrupulous means of which he was always willing to avail himself in order to attain his own ends. He had been away from the Priory on one occasion more than a year, when he suddenly returned with his uncle, who had been in town on business. He appeared sullen and uncomfortable, and she imagined that they must have had a quarrel. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... of us I should not ask him, for these are not subjects which any one, especially at his age, can well speak of before a large audience; most people are not aware that this roundabout progress through all things is the only way in which the mind can attain truth and wisdom. And therefore, Parmenides, I join in the request of Socrates, that I may hear the process again which I have not heard for a ...
— Parmenides • Plato
... came late to my lodgings. The events of the previous evening had made me nervous and ill; I had tried to cure myself and attain to clear thinking by walking in the open air, but I was oppressed with a horrible presentiment of evil—a presentiment which I could not formulate. It was a chill, foggy night; my clothing and hair were damp and I shook with cold. In ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... Gainsborough and Hogarth turn, not names of the world, maybe, but English names—and England against the world! A living master? why, there he comes! thou hast had him long, he has long guided thy young hand towards the excellence which is yet far from thee, but which thou canst attain if thou shouldst persist and wrestle, even as he has done, 'midst gloom and despondency—ay, and even contempt; he who now comes up the creaking stair to thy little studio in the second floor to inspect thy last ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Musalmans, who will kill them for food). Do not plough with bullocks. Keep a fast on the day before the new moon. Do not cut green trees. Sacrifice with fire. Say prayers; meditate. Perform worship and attain heaven.' And the last of the twenty-nine duties prescribed by the teacher: 'Baptise your children if you would be called ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... theories of the various abstract sciences, together with the modes in which those theories were historically and logically arrived at, should form a part of universal education: for, first, it is only thus that the methods can be learnt, by which to attain the results sought by the moral and social sciences: though we cannot perceive that M. Comte got at his own moral and social results by those processes. Secondly, the principal truths of the subordinate sciences are necessary to the systematization (still systematization!) of our conceptions, ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... conception, what he had known long ago, but had never realised and never quite believed. Now he realised and believed it, and not only realised and believed that if men would obey these laws they would obtain the highest blessing they can attain to, he also realised and believed that the only duty of every man is to fulfil these laws; that in this lies the only reasonable meaning of life, that every stepping aside from these laws is a mistake which is immediately followed ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... started with surprise, for it seemed as if success had crowned my attempts. I repeated the effort, but failed. A certain position of the organs took place on the first attempt, altogether new, unexampled and as it were, by accident, for I could not attain it ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... steps taken by the Government of the United States not attain the object it (the German Government) desires, to have the laws of humanity followed by all belligerent nations, the German Government would then be facing a new situation in which it must reserve to ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... stronghold of his foes. 'Ah, how dearly,' he exclaimed, 'has man paid for the natural sciences!' Not but that Providence designed that man should know something about them; only it must be in due order. The ancients were not permitted to attain to much or even any sound knowledge of physics, indisputably above us as they were in force of mind, a fact shown by the superiority of their languages which ought to silence for ever the voice of our modern ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... Whigs, to defeat him for re-election. There was really no valid reason why he should have been re-elected; he had little claim, upon the country, but was for the most part, merely a clever politician, the first to attain the presidency. His life had been marked by an orderly advance from local to state, and then to national offices—an advance obtained not because he stood for any great principle, but because he knew how to make friends and ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson |
