"Aspiration" Quotes from Famous Books
... frank with you, and tell you that what you ask of me is beyond my power. I am no politician, and if I have signed the petition for instruction in Castilian it has been because I saw in it an advantage to our studies and nothing more. My destiny is different; my aspiration reduces itself to alleviating the physical sufferings ... — The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... aeolian melodies marches to his own accompaniment while the evening breeze softly thrums its anthem of divine love. We wished our lives might be pierced by the mystery of their gleaming javelins that we too might learn their lessons of strength, endurance and noble aspiration. As we stood at the base of these glorious forest-crowned mountains, gazing in rapt admiration and wonder at God's "handiwork," we were conscious of a revelation whispered through the myriad needles of the pine. How ... — See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... what period is unknown, but his tender devotion to his wife is commemorated on the reverse pages of an autograph alchemical MS. now in the British Museum, which belies furthermore, in every line and word, the Luciferian imposture of the Paris-cum-Yankee documents, by its passionate religious aspiration and ... — Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... man, Robert Thorne, again with Henry's help, went out to look for the North-west passage which Cabot had failed to find. Thorne's ship was called the Dominus Vobiscum, a pious aspiration which, however, secured no success. A London man, a Master Hore, tried next. Master Hore, it is said, was given to cosmography, was a plausible talker at scientific meetings, and so on. He persuaded 'divers young lawyers' (briefless barristers, I suppose) and other gentlemen—altogether a hundred ... — English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... not offer the example of a single individual redeeming by brilliant personal qualities the vice of subalternity, to which his position condemned him; not a single one who has ever evinced any grand national aspiration. Around them in the obscurity of their courts, gather idle or retrograde courtiers, men who call themselves noble, but who have never been able to constitute an aristocracy. An aristocracy is a compact independent ... — The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... government was the ideal of the entire race. Had General Washington—the leader of the revolutionary army—had the desire to become a monarch himself he would probably have been successful. But Washington's one aim was to respect republicanism and he had no aspiration to become King. Besides he had no son capable of succeeding him on the throne. Consequently on the day independence was won, the republican form of government was adopted without hesitation, and it has survived ... — The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... but all the more spontaneous and authentic, biography of a very rare spirit. It contains the record of a short life, into which was crowded far more of keen experience and high aspiration—of the thrill of sense and the rapture of soul—than it is given to most men, even of high vitality, to extract from a life of twice the length. Alan Seeger had barely passed his twenty-eighth birthday, when, charging up to ... — Poems • Alan Seeger
... the Spider!" What magic, what mystery was this? Lilith's last gift, Lilith's image; even her very name! It had indeed acted as a talisman, as a "charm" to stand between him and the most deadly of peril, as her aspiration had worded it. Verily, again had Lilith's love availed to stand between himself and a swift, sure, and bloody death! A marvel, and a ... — The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... met personal defeat in his aspiration to the Presidency, the principle of non-intervention by Congress in the affairs of the Territories, for which he had so earnestly contended, had been triumphant both in the convention of the party, and at the polls. This principle, in its application to Kansas, ... — Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... parties in their beginning; and, if need be, we can refashion them. For the aim of government is not to preserve parties but to give range to free individual action in a democracy. And it is in this spirit of national aspiration that we welcome our distinguished guest of honor—a man now placed above parties, and too just to regard the Republic by sections, our best equipped citizen for the ... — The South and the National Government • William Howard Taft
... reduced to such limits devotes herself in vain, feels that a higher aspiration has been stifled within her. She is yet the ... — Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... he spoke, I knew that his wound was healed. He was to resume his work at once; had brought back a host of ideas he was eager to put into execution, and was what he called "under the mastery of the twin demi-gods—necessity and aspiration." ... — A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... on and describing the struggle between grace and corrupt nature in the soul. Christ has brought us light and life, and would have us put off what we are, and follow Him, who knew no sin. But these men, far from rising even to the aspiration after perfection, do not advance in their notion of spiritual religion beyond the idea of declaring and lamenting their want of it. Confession is with them perfection; nay, it is almost the test of a Christian, to be ... — Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... postcards were a great feature of these galleries, and they contained also, of course, many private jests and allusions lost upon the visitor. Character was revealed in the collections; for the most part they showed desire for joy, and aspiration to deck the working-place with objects and words that should breed happy thoughts and draw the mind where its treasure harboured. Each heart it seemed was holding, or seeking, a romance; each heart was settled about ... — The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... heart of the great German masters; whose satisfying strength and simplicity—so far removed from the restless questioning of our later day—were surely the outcome of a large faith in God; of the certainty that effort, aspiration, and endurance, despite their seeming futility, can never fail to be very much ... — Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... from the habit of candidates for office in Rome going around to solicit votes: hence, aspiration for office, ... — New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... the level of the commonplace; for Lena was not common as servants are, either in her personality or in the atmosphere she created in her room. Even her visitor, absorbed as she was in her own purpose, was not unconscious of the cleanliness of the place, of the artistic aspiration represented by the few ... — The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... shall one day bring together in an indissoluble unity of light, the good, the true, and the beautiful, and in a unity of darkness, evil, deformity, and falsehood. Let it suffice to have pointed out how a threefold aspiration leads man to God, under the guidance of the conscience, the understanding, and the feelings; and that a threefold rebellion estranges him from God, by sinking him into the dark regions of deformity, error, and evil. Humanity ... — The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... full aspiration, and pausing a while after the word—Was I a judge, and the laws of the country which made me one permitted it, I would condemn some of the worst malefactors, provided they had had their clergy...—Yorick, foreseeing the sentence was likely to end with no sort ... — The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the walls and partitions of apartments. Hence the name of phantom, by which it is generally designated. Nevertheless, as it is united with the body from which it emanates by an invisible vascular plexus, it can, at will, draw to itself, by a sort of aspiration, the greater part of the living forces which animate the latter. One sees, then, by a singular inversion, life withdrawn from the body, which then exhibits a cadaverous rigidity, and transfers itself entirely to the phantom, ... — The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... cast in a very different sort of mould—the very antithesis in character, demeanour, and aspiration to Tommaso de Soderini—he has very appropriately been called "the Cataline of Florence." Possessed of immense wealth, much of which had come to him from his father, Messer Antonio, he rapidly dissipated it by selfish ... — The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... to all of us, that gentleness and abnegation of self which is the only token and assurance of a love aught but animal—Sylvia's fears and doubts melted away, as the mists melt in the beams of morning. A young girl, with passionate fancy, with honest and noble aspiration, but with the dark shadow of her early mental sickness brooding upon her childlike nature, Marriage made her a woman, by developing in her a woman's trust and pride in the man to whom she had voluntarily given herself. Yet by-and-by out of this sentiment arose a new and strange ... — For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... statesmen and politicians abroad that Canada is valued and respected; but that throughout all classes, and wherever intellect, culture, and scientific attainment are revered, her position is acknowledged, and her aspiration to take her place among the nations is seen ... — Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... those grown-up children in the Village joyously splashing on their wooden toys or the walls of their absurd and charming "shops" will somehow get into the grey fabric of your life; and a certain eager urging undertone of idealism and hope and sturdy aspiration will make you restless as you follow your common round. Perhaps you will go back. Perhaps you will keep it as a rainbow memory, a visualisation of the make-believe country where anything is possible. But in any case ... — Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... gentlemen, in short, who are to be found, not numerously perhaps, but certainly, in almost every land, with unusual strength of intellect, and breadth of thought, and power of frame, and force of will, and nobility of aspiration. Such men in free countries, become leaders of the good and brave. In despotic lands they become either the deliverers of their country or the pests of society—the terror of rulers, the fomentors of national discord. Doubtless, in many cases, where right principles ... — In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sons of Battle, by a change in the aspiration of the "H," becomes "Sons of Flight, ... — The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... strength and unity alone has the Khilafat brought to India. The great block in the way of Indian aspiration for full freedom was the problem of external defence. How is India, left to herself defend her frontiers against her Mussalman neighbours? None but emasculated nations would accept such difficulties and responsibilities ... — Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... altogether from feminine attractions. Of course I have been thinking it over, but for the present my inclination turns towards yachting. I have always been fond of the water, and had a strong wish to go to sea when I was a boy, but that aspiration was not encouraged. However, I can follow my bent now. Norton has been piling up money for me in my absence, and I can afford myself the luxury of a big yacht. Of course I shall be in no hurry about it. I shall either build or buy a biggish craft, ... — The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... of these groups after another. It was as interesting to watch the listeners as the speakers. I wished I might paint the sea of faces, eager, anxious, stolid, attentive, happy, and unhappy: histories written on many of them; others blank, unmarked by any thought or aspiration. I stole a sidelong look at the Honourable Arthur. He is an Englishman first, and a man afterwards (I prefer it the other way), but he does not realise it; he thinks he is just like all other good fellows, although he is mistaken. ... — Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... her feet, over her head, and beyond the reach of vision, because inhabiting that realm into which the spirit alone can send its aspiration and its prayer, was one influence, one spell: the warmth of the good wholesome earth, its breath of sweetness, its voices of peace and love and rest, the majesty of its flashing dome; and holding all these safe as in the hollow of a hand the ... — The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... combined with the bright eyes and more attractively shaped head of a Caucasian. His hair was smooth and black, but lacked the coarseness of his mother's race, while his brain and method of thinking were wholly that of his father. With this endowment there had come to him, early in life, an aspiration to rise above his own sort, a desire to be a thorough white man. And in this he had always been supported by his mother, who, knowing her past, carried in her heart bitterness fully the equal of ... — The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... so much to be free, not under the compulsion of any need for unification, or tortured by unsatisfied desire. Desire and aspiration should find their object without all this torture, as now, in a world of plenty of water, simple thirst is inconsiderable, satisfied almost unconsciously. And he wanted to be with Ursula as free as with himself, single and clear and cool, ... — Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... expression, the meaning of which is of still more general acceptation. The idea, in fact, has doubtless flitted across the minds of most of us, though few, let us hope, would help to realize it; for, notwithstanding its agreeable form, it is not a benevolent aspiration. The reception of the individual in question into the realms of bliss has less interest with us than his removal from the earth's surface, and, consequently, from our path upon it. We may be very civil toward this person, and we often are; ... — Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... to describe the productions of my female correspondents in detail. Suffice it to say, that most of them contain a smaller proportion of useless information, and a larger proportion of sentiment, vague aspiration, and would-be-picturesque description, than those of the men who pay postage on my behalf. They are longer, and sometimes crossed; it is therefore a greater task to ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... it be vivid as the life of experience, as the life that teaches one the truth of men and women, the truth of creation—joy, sorrow, aspiration, lust, ambition of the intellect ... — The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... established sympathies in common; I call him to prayers, to his meals, to his matins, and to his rest. Many a time, when he finds me alone, he gives me some spiritual reading, or says aloud some prayers. Every time I strike, he breathes an aspiration of love and thanksgiving. In short, we have found our glorious mission in our new birth. We are both apostles: I represent ... — Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... her, and gathered from her conversation that her greatest pleasure, next to a funeral, was to take James Mandeville to white folks' church on Sunday afternoon, "to see dem chillen march and sing." To her enthusiasm was due the aspiration of her charge to be a choir boy, and he was often heard singing lustily versions of "Onward, Christian Soldiers," and "O Paradise," which were ... — The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... a few hundred years were but as yesterday in God's sight. The exterior of the cathedral is transitory-looking, like an aspect of "this world." But inside is part of the eternal silence such as one might experience in a profound subterranean chamber. There is no aspiration, no adoration—but there is a sense of eternal law. The Church is imposed on earth. About the dome is written, "Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church," in letters of gold—Rome's ultimate authority. All is square and solid and heavy. There are no seats, but the extensive floor ... — Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... upon unerected coral, our diet from the pickle-tub or out of tins; I had learned to welcome shark' flesh for a variety; and a mountain, an onion, an Irish potato or a beef-steak, had been long lost to sense and dear to aspiration. ... — The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wholly true, and applies to the latter rather than to the first half of it. The book rests on an ethical and religious foundation: the actual laws begin with a hymn of praise in honour of the soul. And the same lofty aspiration after the good is perpetually recurring, especially in Books X, XI, XII, and whenever Plato's mind is filled with his highest themes. In prefixing to most of his laws a prooemium he has two ends ... — Laws • Plato
... who attach themselves to a party by their virtues; others, again, by their vices. No recognized political party exists which does not contain some true principle; which does not respond to some legitimate aspiration of human society. At the same time, there is not one which can not serve as a pretext, as a refuge, and as a hope, for the basest passions ... — Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... deliberately its sanction; in which our feelings would safely and with satisfaction rest on the firmness of our faith; from joining in which a truly pious mind would have no ground for inward misgiving, nor for the aspiration, Would it ... — Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... fragments of Shelley's were unknown to Byron. Long after Byron's day, but long years before his dream was realized, Mrs. Browning, in her Casa Guidi Windows (1851), in the same metre, re-echoed the same aspiration (see her Preface), "that the future of Italy shall not be disinherited." (See for some of these instances of terza rima, Englische Metrik, von Dr. J. Schipper, 1888, ii. 896. See, too, The Metre of Dante's Comedy discussed and exemplified, by Alfred ... — The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... interest in these poems. In the lessons on art, there are studies of pictures that suggest feelings and thoughts characterized by universality, permanency, and nobility—pictures that stir men to nobler thought and higher aspiration. Often, such pictures are the painter's method of expressing in colours, thoughts that the poet has expressed in words. Lessons such as Dandelions, Bob White, and The Sandpiper require a preliminary acquaintance ... — Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... repeated, with vague aspiration. The aspiration seemed to disengage her from herself, and from this earth, which had nothing more to offer her. Ah! how far away was now the time when she had entered churches, full of happiness and hope, to offer a candle that her prayer might be granted, ... — Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... against humanity. It is used—and I wish to emphasize the fact again—without any moral significance: and this is so far true that the rottenness I speak of is most apparent to me precisely in those quarters where there has been most aspiration, hitherto, toward "virtue" and "godliness." As you probably surmise, I understand rottenness in the sense of decadence: my argument is that all the values on which mankind now fixes its highest ... — The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... freedom, or it will never take its grandest flights. And it is altogether possible that the needed corrective will presently be discovered of itself, through the progress of spirit into a clearer vision, a higher aspiration and a nobler sense of beauty. This we may hope will be one of the distinctions of the coming ages, which poets have foretold and seers have imagined, when truth and love will prevail and find their illustration in a civilization conformed of its own accord to the unrestricted ... — A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... the serenity of peace, which for its ideal needs dreams that soar into the Infinite—Gustave had only the scornful sneer of the man who identifies with his ambition the violent upset of all that civilisation has established in this world, and the blank negation of all that patient hope and heroic aspiration which humanity carries ... — The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... was in disgrace. The hope of gaining such a name, or the fear of losing it, was in the pupil the strongest ally of the master, the most powerful enforcement of his influences. It was a scheme of government by aspiration. But it owed all its operative power to the character of the man who had adopted rather than invented it—for the scheme had been suggested by a certain passage in ... — Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Buckingham, Eng., April 2, 1762; studied for the ministry and became a curate, successor of William Romaine. His spiritual maturity was early, and his habits of thought were formed amid associations such as the young Wesleys and Whitefield sought. Like them, even in his student days he proved his aspiration for purer religious life by an evangelical zeal that cost him the ridicule of many of his school-fellows, but the meetings for conference and prayer which he organized among them were not unattended, and were lasting and salutary in ... — The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... resulted unhappily. The adults who gather seem always, or almost always, to be, not average, well-disposed citizens, but a more or less incendiary minority who want to change things—and to change them a lot and very quickly. That aspiration is not wholly indefensible, for a good many things would be the better for changing, but real light and leading have not often been found on top at meetings in schoolhouses, and experience has proved that the Teachers' ... — The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... her mother's exigent standard, but she could not, all at once, and be a girl too—a girl of sixteen, a little off the key physically, not having come to a woman's repose of movement; a little stridulous mentally, but pulsing with life's dumb music of aspiration; as intense as her mother in feeling, without her mother's power to throw off the strain ... — A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... but one step in the career of steady progress by which my dominions in North America may be ultimately peopled in an unbroken chain, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, by a loyal and industrious population.' The aspiration, so strikingly expressed, found a fervent echo in the national heart, and it continues to engage the earnest attention of England; for it speaks of a great outspread of solid prosperity and of rational liberty, of the diffusion of ... — Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... gradation were designated Shabaks, Bhaktas and Yogis. The lowest class, divided into two sections, is devoted to religious study and the practical performance of religious duties, including doing good to others. The aspiration of the Bhakta is ... 'Inebriation in God. He is most passionately fond of God and delights in loving Him and all that pertains to Him.... The very utterance of the divine name causes his heart to overflow and brings tears of joy to his eyes.' As for ... — The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... She could not rally from the effect the reading of that book had had upon her mind. She frequently repeated her fervent aspiration: ... — Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... it necessary to give you very minute directions, for if you have the ambition you will find the way. If I could excite in you an intense longing to visit Paris, I should know that you would begin to seek for the way of getting there. If I could create in you an earnest aspiration to be well and physically strong, I should know that you would seek for the books that would give you the necessary instruction. It will not be needful to talk of rules and restrictions if I can make you feel the glory of having ... — What a Young Woman Ought to Know • Mary Wood-Allen
... "The aspiration is yours, Goddess. They are only fit symbols of a super- materialism. Their strength ... — The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... of beauty ever stole into my mind. I never turned my face up to the sky to watch the passing of a cloud, or mused before the undulating space of sea, or looked down upon the earth with the curiosity of thought, or spiritual aspiration. I was moved and governed by my sensations, which continually changed, and passed away—to come again, and deposit vague ideas which ignorantly haunted me. The literal images of all things which I saw were impressed on my shapeless ... — The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... religion, and this was enacted in terms which disclosed the bigoted feelings of the nation. Sicily wanted to be independent of Naples, but it had not the same wish to be separated from the despotic principle. An independent nation, without a free people, was the highest aspiration of revolted Sicily. England and France left her to her fate, except so far as Lord Minto's meddling complicated her condition. The temporarily vanquished Neapolitans returned to the contest, and the ... — The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and celestial things; madonnas by Raphael, on whose lips he has impressed a holy and delicate reserve, implying sanctity on earth, and into whose soft eyes he has thrown a light which he never could have imagined except by raising his own eyes with a pure aspiration heavenward. We remember, too, that divinest countenance in the Transfiguration, and withdraw all that ... — The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seriously present to the thoughtful Hindu some of the higher conceptions and deepest yearnings of the soul. Of all the faiths of the "Far East" none dwells so much upon these profound religious realities, or engages in such lofty flights of spiritual aspiration, as does this religion of the Brahmans. And no one can study these products of the greatest minds and most sensitive religious souls of India without entertaining a great and growing ... — India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... soldiery kept in order by fear was converted into "a union of all the moral and physical energies of the nation." By Wilhelm von Humboldt the modern Prussian school system was created; while by Fichte, Arndt, and a galaxy of other writers there was imparted a stimulus by which the patriotism and aspiration of the Prussian people were raised to (p. 248) ... — The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... strange guest. Fresh and fair as Zephyrus, he came from the forest depths, and she welcomed him,—no stranger,—though the breath that bore him was all heavenly, and his aspiration was remote from earthly sources. Yes, ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... pursuing her 'horrible pleasure' at the expense of madness and death to another; not half so cruel and injurious, for in that act she has trampled down, and torn, and dislocated, she has slaughtered in cold blood, the divine, angelic form of womanhood—that form of worth and celestial aspiration which great nature stamped upon her, and gave to her for her law in nature, her type, her essence, her ORIGINAL. She has desecrated, not that common form of humanity only which the common human sentiment ... — The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... bourgeoisie in 1836 remembered most distinctly about Napoleon were his despotism and his taste for war; and the most lasting impression of him amongst the most intelligent in the working-classes was that whilst sowing the seeds of democratic aspiration throughout Europe, he had carefully weeded out all democratic ... — France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... desperate venture is now a lucrative business. What was once a martyrdom is now its own reward. What once had saintly unearthliness is now a powerful motor among worldly interests. What was once the fatality of genius is now the aspiration of fools. The people have turned to reading, and have become a more liberal patron than even the Athenian State, monastic order, or noble lord. No longer does the literary class wander about the streets, gingerbread ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... with the physical sciences and stirred about by Positivists and missionaries. "I would I were a protoplastic monad!" may sound very rhythmical, poetical, and all that; but even for a Baboo the aspiration is not an ... — Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... antithesis of phenomenal and real is less present to it. But the pungency of this antithesis comes from an imperfect realization of its meaning. Just so far as the subjection of the finite remains no longer a postulate or an aspiration, but is carried into effect,—its finiteness no longer resisted or deplored, but accepted,—just so far it ceases to be opaque and inert. The present seems trivial and squalid, because it is clutched and held fast,—the fugitive image petrified ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... When we hear that there is, animating the whole universe, an Elan vital, or general impulse toward some unknown but single ideal, the terms used are no less uncertain, mythical, and vague, but the suggestion conveyed is false—false, I mean, to the organic source of life and aspiration, to the simple naturalness of nature: whereas the suggestion conveyed by Freud's speculations is true. In what sense can myths and metaphors be true or false? In the sense that, in terms drawn from moral predicaments or from literary psychology, they may report the ... — Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... genial and kindly. We have here no acrid cynic sneeringly pointing out the plague spots of humanity, and showing pleasantly how even the good are tainted with evil. Rather does Dickens delight in finding some touch of goodness, some lingering memory of better things, some hopeful aspiration, some trace of unselfish devotion in characters where all seems soddened and lost. In brief, the laughter is the laughter of one who sees the foibles, and even the vices of his fellow-men, and yet looks on ... — Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... understood but the concluding phrase, and that was the bitter and blasphemous carajo! that hissed through his teeth with the energetic aspiration of rage ... — The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... No book has sold more largely than the Imitation of Christ. But was it not often a blind struggle in the dark, an attempt to reach a goal never clearly seen. Wandering in a labyrinth of fanaticism, agonizing in the effort to distort nature, the biographical record of religious aspiration serves to show how nearly multitudes may approach the boundary line of insanity in their protracted periods of causeless mental agony and in their fierce hostility to heresy and to science. Alike in Brahmin, Buddhist, Mohammedan, and Christian nations have we seen the vast expenditure ... — Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... and the trees and grass dripped with lifeless moisture. As she goaded and allured alternately her own fainting soul, it writhed and struggled but could not rise; there was no pungency of bitterness in her self-reproach, no thrill of joy in her aspiration; for the hand of Calvin's God lay heavy ... — By What Authority? • Robert Hugh Benson
... imparted strength to battle with gentler impulses. But it was a painful and unnatural conflict between an ingenuous character and a taunting pride—a war between thought and tenderness. Wo to the heart that dares such a struggle! Aspiration may bring a temporary solace, excitement a momentary balm; but never yet, in all the tear-chronicled records of genius, has woman found peace in praise, or compensation in applause. It is enough for her to obtain, in the dangerous arena of competition, a brief ... — Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various
... endeavor to express a quality, with the aspiration to make it real, has the tendency to focus the power of that quality and concentrate the mind upon it. This, by repetition of effort, both increases the power and facilitates its expression. One must come to think vividly in terms of expression. In the instance before us it should be in ... — Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... alluded to public matters with a piety and reason the most exalted, which moved all who heard almost to tears. Oh, that those rebellious subjects beyond the ocean could have heard their Monarch! Yet why should this be my aspiration when there were rebels, and filial ones, close at hand, ... — The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... sensibility is to develop, to educate, to chasten the highest faculties, our vast discourse of reason, our unselfish aspiration, our deep instinct of truth, our capacious love. To educate these is its cardinal duty, and lacking this they remain uneducated. But its beneficent influence is felt likewise in the less elevated of our efforts. The man who makes ... — Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... linger for a moment on the outside. The spire points upward and teaches its lesson of aspiration. "Lift up your hearts," it seems to say, and holds up the Cross as that by which alone we are to be "exalted unto everlasting life." Whenever we {19} lift up our eyes to it, it ought to repeat for us that lesson—rebuke ... — The Worship of the Church - and The Beauty of Holiness • Jacob A. Regester
... volume at all succeed in giving this; should it uproot one false impression, to plant a single true one in its place, then has it fully equaled the aspiration of ... — Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... more to our purpose is the subsequent process of dissolution, or petrifaction. All that need be said is that Margaret married her husband when she was twenty-four, with confidence, belief in him, and a spiritual aspiration concerning marriage not possible to many who marry. However foolishly she may have deluded herself,—betrayed a fatal incapacity to divine,—she believed when she went to the altar with Lawrence Pole that ... — Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... just zipping, swift, straight lines that shot up to the upper end of the paper and seemed to continue invisibly toward an altitudinous nowhere. This is all he drew, and yet as he worked there was in his face the set of stubborn purpose, and in his eyes the glow of aspiration. He tried to make each line beautiful and firm and swift and pure. When he succeeded, he felt within him the bubbling of a sweet contentment. This would be followed by dissatisfaction, renewed yearning—and he ... — The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... effort be made to give back to him his manhood." "There is no greater mistake in the whole compass of penal discipline, than its studied imposition of degradation as a part of punishment. Such imposition destroys every better impulse and aspiration. It crushes the weak, irritates the strong and indisposes all to submission and reform. It is trampling, where it ought to raise, and is therefore as unchristian in principle as it is ... — The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... parent? If to this she added intelligent love, appreciation, and sympathy, would he care? If she should be able to say, "Papa, I am kin to you, not merely in flesh and blood, but in mind, hope, and aspiration; I share with you that which makes your life, with its success and failure, not as the child who may find luxurious externals curtailed or increased, but as a sympathetic woman who understands the more vital changes in spiritual vicissitude,"—if she could truthfully ... — An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... truth about herself was in that melancholy aspiration. No relief in tears, no merciful oblivion in a fainting-fit, for her. The terrible strength of the vital organization in this woman knew no yielding to the unutterable misery that wrung her to the soul. It roused its ... — The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... to be with mother, wouldn't you?" the girl appealed. I replied with all possible emphasis that I should like to be with Mrs. Pethel. But presently, when the mother and daughter reappeared in the guise of motorists, it became clear that my aspiration had been set aside. "I am to be with ... — James Pethel • Max Beerbohm
... Wijayan sovereigns[1], and the earlier kings of that dynasty admitted the rank of the Yakkho chiefs who shared in these enterprises. They assigned a suburb of the capital for their residence[2], and on festive occasions they were seated on thrones of equal eminence with that of the king.[3] But every aspiration towards a recovery of their independence was checked by a device less characteristic of ingenuity in the ascendant race, than of simplicity combined with jealousy in the aborigines. The feeling was encouraged and matured into a conviction which prevailed to the latest period of the Singhalese ... — Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... lighted with a momentary enthusiasm—then sank wearily in the vain regret which comes too late. Ah! if he could have been her friend and her adviser on the fatal day when she first turned her steps toward Mablethorpe House! She sighed bitterly as the hopeless aspiration wrung her heart. He heard the sigh; and, turning again, looked at her with a new interest in ... — The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... that she had forfeited both the confidence of her husband and the respect of her daughter. Months ago she had meant by force of some initiative to regularise this idyll which by its stealthiness wounded the self-respect of all concerned. Vain aspiration! And now the fact that Fred Ryley had begun to call at Church Street appeared to indicate between him and Uncle Meshach a closer understanding which could only be detrimental to the ... — Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... mannered, every gesture dulcet. And if the ladies were . . . we will hope they have been traduced. But if they were, if they were too tender, ah! gentlemen were gentlemen then—worth perishing for! There is this dream in the English country; and it must be an aspiration after some form of melodious gentlemanliness which is imagined to have inhabited the island at one time; as among our poets the dream of the period of a circle of chivalry here is encouraged for the pleasure ... — The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... encouraged Schwester Katrei in her attempt to substitute the living death of the blank trance for the dying life of Christian charity; but none the less she caricatured and stultified his teaching. And I think it is possible to lay our finger on the place where she and so many others went wrong. The aspiration of mysticism is to find the unity which underlies all diversity, or, in religious language, to see God face to face. From the Many to the One is always the path of the mystic. Plotinus, the father of all mystical philosophy in Europe (unless, as he himself would have wished, we give that honour ... — Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... intense saffron glow of the sunset sky, changeless monuments of the perishable glory and the imperishable hope of man. He looked up into the face of the crouching Sphinx and vainly tried to read the meaning of the calm eyes and smiling mouth. Was it, indeed, the mockery of all effort and all aspiration, as Tigranes had said—the cruel jest of a riddle that has no answer, a search that never can succeed? Or was there a touch of pity and encouragement in that inscrutable smile—a promise that even the defeated should attain a victory, and the disappointed ... — The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... whole day, when no good of any sort can come of it? What is it to me if nations fall a-slaughtering each other? Let the fools go to it! Why should they not please themselves? Peace, after all, is the aspiration of the few; so it always; was, and ever will be. But have done with the nauseous cant about "dire calamity." The leaders and the multitude hold no such view; either they see in war a direct and tangible profit, or they are driven to it, with heads down, by the brute ... — The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... crashes of orchestration mitigate the tragedy of the scene as our eyes are opened to the twilight of our new gods. For what other social methods are there left to us? In the struggle against nature's barriers upon human aspiration for perfect satisfactions, it looks as though every other method has ... — The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... salt and their light! The world that knows neither their salt nor their light may imagine itself now at least greatly retarded by the long-drawn survival of their influences; but such as have chosen aspiration and not ambition, will cry, But for those men, whither should we at this moment be bound! Their Master set them to be salt against corruption, and light against darkness; and our souls answer and say, Lord, they have ... — Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... who was loved by that son, all now sleep their last sleep under the greensward of St. Peter's Church. To many of us it is the one spot in Bournemouth most worth visiting. Climbing the wooded hill we stand by the Shelley grave, and think of how much intellect, aspiration, and achievement lies there entombed, and of the pathetic cenotaph to the memory of the greatest of all the Shelleys in the fine old Priory of Christchurch, ... — Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... wounded me to the quick. I feel innocent, yet, Lord, how little I can hear! Give me the love that hopeth all things, endureth all things, which rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.—Kirkby. I am reading Fletcher's Life. How it excites holy desire! My earnest aspiration is after perfect love. When shall it once be? Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.—We went to Ribstone to see Mrs. R. but did not pray at the close of the visit; my mind was wounded on this account. ... — Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... trained in the ways of peace he had a horror of the cruelties of war, of which he had heard and seen much since the battle of Germantown, and shrank from the thought of taking any human life. On the other hand was the brave and boundless aspiration for liberty and a country of one's own, that had thrilled him when he heard the Declaration of Independence read. And now that France had held out a helping hand, and the English Parliament was divided, the ... — A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... difficulty would be to limit the process, for EVERY ancient ritual, we can now see, has had a meaning and a message, and it would be a real joy to disentangle these and to expose the profound solidarity of humanity and aspiration from the very dawn of civilization down to the present day. Nor would it be necessary to imagine any Act of Uniformity or dead level of ceremonial in the matter. Different groups might concentrate on different phases of religious thought and practice. The only necessity ... — Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... inadequate. But what doubtless supplied this taste with continual nutriment was that all-pervading and unspeakable sweetness of Christ's teaching by parables. The Phoenix was used upon Roman coins to express the aspiration for renewed vitality in the empire; it was used by early Christian writers[5] as an emblem of the Resurrection; and in the Anglo-Saxon poem ... — Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... holidays; and his example had a great influence over the parish-priests in this particular, as also over the laity, both young and old. He inculcated to all the making, every hour when the clock struck, the sign of the cross, with a fervent aspiration on the passion of Christ. He severely forbade the custom of Valentines or giving boys, in writing, the names of girls to be admired and attended on by them; and, to abolish it, he changed it into giving billets with the names of certain saints for them to ... — The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... difficult and over-nice than he was. Big children as we are, we need stories which give food to our imagination, after being disappointed by the realities of life. This is perhaps the very object of the novel. Romance is not necessarily an exaggerated aspiration towards imaginary things. It is something else too. It is the revolt of the soul which is oppressed by the yoke of Nature. It is the expression of that tendency within us towards a freedom which is impossible, but of which we nevertheless dream. An iron law presides over our destiny. Around ... — George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... never trust one of their own class. I agree with them. I share their instincts. In my undergraduate days I was a Republican-a Socialist. I tried hard to feel toward a common man as I do towards a duke. I couldnt. Neither can you. Well, why should we be ashamed of this aspiration towards what is above us? Why dont I say that an honest man's the noblest work of God? Because I dont think so. If he's not a gentleman, I dont care whether he's honest or not: I shouldnt let his son marry my daughter. And thats the test, mind. Thats the test. You feel as I do. You are ... — Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... noble daring, Born of heavenward aspiration, Then the fire with mortals sharing, Then the vulture,—the despairing Cry of pain ... — The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... difficulty in ascribing such a character, however the idea may be defined, to any actual Hellenic state—or indeed to any state which has ever existed in the world—still the rule of the best was certainly the aspiration of philosophers, who probably accommodated a good deal their views of primitive history to their own notions of good government. Plato further insists on applying to the guardians of his state a series of tests by which all those who fell ... — The Republic • Plato
... written. When, therefore, I allude to the cook, which will be as seldom as possible, I shall speak of her as Miss Diggity-Dalgety, so that I shall be presenting her correctly both to the eye and to the ear, and giving her at the same time a hyphenated name, a thing which is a secret object of aspiration in Great Britain. ... — Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... very vague and unsatisfactory; but Chris became aware of three things. First, that the world was very much alive and could not be dismissed by a pious aspiration or two; second, that the world was about to make some demand that would have to be seriously dealt with, and third, that there was nothing really to fear so long as their souls were clean and courageous. The Abbot was a melting speaker, full at once of a fatherly tenderness and vehemence, and ... — The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... truth on this matter is, I think, generally acknowledged. The feeling in Canada is one of strong aversion to the United States government and of predilection for self-government under the English Crown. A faineant governor and the prestige of British power is now the political aspiration of the Canadians in general; and I think that this is understood in the States. Moreover, the States have a job of work on hand which, as they themselves are well aware, is taxing all their energies. Such being the case, I do not think that ... — Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... naval arm which has been of so great service to many countries. Prussia's desire to have a navy has raised many smiles, and caused much laughter, in this century, as if it were something new; whereas it is an ancient aspiration, and one which all Prussian sovereigns and statesmen have experienced for two hundred years, though not strongly. The Great Czar, who came upon the stage just after the Great Elector left it, did not long more for a good sea-coast than that Elector had longed for it. Frederick ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... title to the fertile and fruitful lands and fabled riches of the newly discovered continent, became the aspiration of the great maritime states of Europe, which had shared between them the honors of its discovery. From the middle of the sixteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the voyages of adventure and projected colonization were almost ... — The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... is possible. Without wishing to reflect on the musical sincerity of those good Sisters, who sing quite suitably but humanly, as women, it may be asserted that they have neither such knowledge, nor such soul-felt aspiration, nor such voices. As a monk remarked, 'when you have heard the Sisters of Solesmes, those of ... — The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... in a more serious strain to sketch the history of superstition and ends with an eloquent aspiration for a ... — Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... observed by the Sramanas, and the dignified demeanour in their societies which he remarked under all occurring circumstances, he sadly called to mind in what a mutilated and imperfect condition the rules were among the monkish communities in the land of Ts'in, and made the following aspiration:—"From this time forth till I come to the state of Buddha, let me not be born in a frontier land."(10) He remained accordingly (in India), and did not return (to the land of Han). Fa-hien, however, whose original purpose had been to secure ... — Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms • Fa-Hien
... the Mount of the Beatitudes, embryonic religion and Religion adult; all, indeed, natural, yet of lower and of higher grade. Doubtless, Religion of whatever grade outranks all other human activities by its distinctive aspiration to transcend the bounds of space and time and sense, and to link the individual to the universal; and so all Religion sounds, feebly or distinctly, the note of the supernatural. But this is the resonant note of the spiritual Religion which unfolds in the moral progress of the world. As ... — Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... forgot Egypt, he forgot everything except that greatest creation which man has ever accomplished; that creation which by its inexorable calm and prodigious power rouses in some hearts terror and sets peace in some, stirs some natures to aspiration, and crushes others to the ground with an overwhelming sense of their impotence, their smallness, their fugitive existence, and their ... — Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... at a tavern in London, he said, that, if the bill did not pass, he for one should like to "wade the streets of the capital knee-deep in blood." It was consoling to reflect, even at the time, that the atrocious aspiration was mitigated by the reflection that it would not require a deluge of gore to reach the knees of such a Zacchaeus as Roebuck. "Pretty wicious that for a child of six!" said the amiable Mr. Squeers on one occasion; and pretty sanguinary that, say ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... be a big strong man like father is!' How like a boy was this? Thirsting for the strength, the might and power of manhood! And this is the aspiration of the young heart always; to be mature, strong to grapple with the cares, and wrestle with the stern actualities of life. How little of these does childhood know! How little does it calculate the chances, that when, in the long future, it shall have attained ... — Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... hungry? When the index of shadow points out from the base of old Sentinel Rock and touches that column of descending spray they call Yosemite, I go to dinner. "The Fall of the Yosemite"—what a dream it is. A dream of the lotus-eaters, and an aspiration of the Ideal in Nature. You can not realize it; and yet, you will never forget it. Don't take it too early in the Spring, when it is less ethereal—nay, somewhat heavy; rather see it in summer after the rains, or in autumn, ... — In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... writer who has yet undertaken the glorious task, to write a history of the Rise and Progress of the Roman Republic. What a work would eight volumes such as that before us on Hannibal have formed, in conjunction with Gibbon's immortal Decline and Fall! His ardent love of truth, his warm aspiration after the happiness of the human race, his profound and yet liberal religious feeling, as much gave him the spirit requisite for such an undertaking, as his extensive scholarship, his graphic power, ... — Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... they fell. My spirit more and more felt, and danced—deeper mysteries of sensation, sweeter thrills. I sipped exquisitely, I drew out enjoyment leisurely. Anon, when some more expansive angel of flame would arise from the Pit with steady aspiration, and linger with outspread arms, and burst, I would lift a little from the chair, leaning forward to clap, as at some famous acting; or I would call to them in shouts of cheer, giving them the names of Woman. For now I seemed to see nothing but some bellowing ... — The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... estimation, were Benjamin Buster, who had seen the world already, had enjoyed adventures and hair-breadth escapes, and was now at home for the first time in four years; Charity Cora, whose eager, dark eyes told their own story of patient aspiration; and little Fandy. Mr. Danby was proud of all his children, though perhaps proudest of Baby Jamie because there was no knowing what the child might come to; but Mrs. Danby looked with absolute reverence upon her eldest—Amanda Arabella. "Such a mind ... — Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... beautiful mystic tales of great souls doing noble deeds, of heroes who died that men might live and love, of beauty and of harmony too deep for any words of his that throb in him and stir depths in his soul to high aspiration. It has all gone through his ears; for his eyes see little that is beautiful. There is, of course, the beauty of the homely hours he spends with those who love him best, hours spent at school and joyous hours spent by the murmuring creek, and there ... — In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... Beth's at just the proper moment, which had caused him gallantly to take the road of Vina Nettleton, was a rare study; but another had risen, not of Beth, but of more intimate meaning to the man, David Cairns. Beth's great force of feminine energy and aspiration, he had been unable to attract. Beth had demanded more than virtue from him, and at a time when he was not finished enough to answer ... — Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... testing the calibre of a philosophy is to ask what it thinks of death. Philosophy, said Plato, is a meditation on death, or rather, if we would do justice to his thought, an aspiration to live disembodied; and Schopenhauer said that the spectacle of death was the first provocation to philosophy. M. Bergson has not yet treated of this subject; but we may perhaps perceive for ourselves the place that it might occupy in his system.[5] Life, according to him, is the original and ... — Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... what had never been done—when you think that we have hands today because from the first of life there have been adventurers—those of best brain and courage who wanted to be more than life had been, and that from aspiration has come doing, and doing has shaped the thing with which to do—it gives our hand a history which should make us want ... — Plays • Susan Glaspell
... the gibes of his contemporaries, he likened himself, he wanted everything; and those with this aspiration must necessarily be heedless of their neighbours' smaller ambitions. "Without genius, I am undone!" he cried in despair; but when it was proved beyond dispute that this gift of debatable beneficence was his, ... — Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... etherealized, strengthened,—meeting the desire of the trained and cultured man, as once it had the impassioned aspiration ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Watkins," persisted Miss Ford. "I want you to meet Bernard Tovey, the painter, and Ivy MacBee, who founded the Aspiration Club, and Frere, the editor of I Wonder, and several other regular Wednesday friends of mine, all interested in the Occult. It would be a real opportunity ... — Living Alone • Stella Benson
... it, my dear, precisely! You intend to be true to yourself, whatever happens. The aspiration does you infinite honor, and I shall try to help you. Now I have noticed that every woman is most truly herself," says Jurgen, ... — Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... a rapid and exalted train of intellectual and literary thought and expression. I confess I don't attempt that, it seems to me just a joyful and neighbourly business, where one puts the mind in a certain expectant mood, and is lucky if one carries a single thrill or aspiration away." ... — Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is a spare mug for coffee in the mess—but now gone for ever. And so it may be with us to-morrow. What does it matter that this or that is misunderstood or perverted; that So-and-so is envious and spiteful; that heavy difficulties obstruct the larger schemes of life, clogging nimble aspiration with the mud of matters of fact? Here life itself, life at its best and healthiest, awaits the caprice of the bullet. Let us see the development of the day. All else may stand over, perhaps for ever. Existence is never so sweet as when it is at hazard. The bright butterfly ... — London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... of your position is, as you said at the beginning, that Good is simply what Nature wants. So that, instead of looking within to find our criterion, we ought really to look without, to discover, if we can, the tendency of Nature and to acquiesce in that as the goal of our aspiration." ... — The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... utterly alone. He had entered his kingdom. Viewed from afar it had seemed a vast pleasure-dome of infinite enchantment. He found Success, as it ever shall be, a veritable desert, grudging man foothold, yet luring him from one aspiration to another, only to consume his ... — Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs |