"Stepping-stone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of that he had no shadow of doubt, but the fitness of the place for him. If he saw promotion, perhaps the presidency, within his grasp, he might deem it worth his while to stay; if not, his professorship should be a stepping-stone to something better. With the history, the traditions, and the ideals of the Hall he was but slightly acquainted; in fact, the institution existed for him at present only in its relation to himself and his ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... on Samarcand!— Is not she queen of Earth? her pride Above all cities? in her hand Their destinies? in all beside Of glory which the world hath known Stands she not nobly and alone? Falling—her veriest stepping-stone Shall form the pedestal of a throne— And who her sovereign? Timour—he Whom the astonished people saw Striding o'er empires haughtily ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... column was taken down in a search for imaginary treasure. It was set up again in 1822 on Weybridge Green as a memorial to the Duchess of York, who died 1820. The dial was not replaced, and was used as a stepping-stone at the Ship Inn at Weybridge; it still lies on one side of the Green. The streets of Seven Dials attained a very unenviable reputation, and were the haunt of all that was vicious and bad. Terrible accounts of the overcrowding ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... taking airs of authority in the house which are quite intolerable; he behaves openly as the son-in-law; and you know very well, in that affair of Thuillier's election he jockeyed us all, and made us the stepping-stone ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... usually referred to as an "artificial method" of classification because it takes into account only a few marked characters of plants, without uniting them by more general natural affinities. At the present time it is considered only as a stepping-stone to the "natural" system; but at the time of its promulgation it was epoch-marking in its directness and simplicity, and therefore ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... electors. It is what I have long wished, and I am delighted that the chief barrier between him and the Radical part of the Whig party should be knocked down by it. In short, patriotically I am quite pleased, but privately far from it; I dread its being a stepping-stone to office, which, not to mention myself, would kill him very soon. He has already quite as much work as his health can stand, so what would it be with office in addition? However, I do not torment myself with a future which may never come, or ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... as servility by a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission to railroad influences serves as a stepping-stone to a high position in the employ of railroad combinations, with a salary of three or four times that of an Interstate Commerce Commissioner, so long will it be unsafe to permit such powers to be vested ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... it will always be well to make some little explanatory remark that may be used as a stepping-stone toward beginning a conversation, thus "Miss S., allow me to present Mr. T., who is just back from Africa," or, "Miss E., this is my friend Mr. F., the composer of that little song you sang just now." Any remark like this always serves to make ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... was the premier and the most important member of Mr. Adams' cabinet. He evidently regarded the Department of State as a stepping-stone to the Executive Mansion, and hoped that he would be in time promoted, as Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams. The foreign policy of the Administration, which encouraged the appointment of a Minister ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... the wares which this guileless peddler had come into that land to sell. He had set out from Omaha full of enthusiasm and youthful vigor, incited to the utmost degree of vending fervor by the representations of the general agent for the little instrument which had been the stepping-stone to greater things for ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... something that a boy can afford to be able to comprehend for eighty pounds a year and a clerk's desk in a Government office. Now, Mr. Hawes has, for many months past, furnished false reports to the justices and to the Home-Office. Here is the true stepping-stone to an inquiry, here is the fact to tell on the official mind; for the man's cruelty and felonious practices are only offenses against God and the law; but a false report is an offense against the office. And here I ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... stoop low enough. And to descend from history down to my own poor chronicle, Mr. Cooke's railroad case, my first experience at the bar of any gravity or magnitude, had tied to it a string of consequences then far beyond my guessing. The suit was my stepping-stone not only to a larger and more remunerative practice, but also, I believe, to the position of district attorney, which ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... far back into his vigorous past for strength to meet his present—because he dreaded what we would find at the end of our work on these dusty books, the last grim figure in dollars and cents that would stand there as the result of his life, as the stepping-stone for Sue's and mine. And that was why he wanted me here, this was his way of telling me the story of his business life—before I saw what lay at the end. And as in our work that story unfolded, though at times it cast its ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... Napoleon, "that I set out in a week for Italy. I shall make myself King; but that is only a stepping-stone. I have greater ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... is, and rich as I shall make her, what husband will be worthy of Micheline? But if she believes me when it is time to choose one, she will prefer a man remarkable for his intelligence, and will give him her fortune as a stepping-stone to raise him as high as ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... G——. These were accidents which Lopez had a gift of keeping in the background. His present companion, Everett Wharton, had, as well as himself, been an original member;—and Wharton had been one of those who had hoped to find in the club a stepping-stone to high political life, and who now talked often with idle energy ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... that glide so quickly by. And when the poet holds it truth that men may rise on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher things, he is simply talking when he ought to be sleeping it off in seclusion. I understand how a man may rise on the stepping-stone of his defunct superior officer to higher things; but his dead self—it won't do, Alfred; it won't do. But hark! that heavy sound breaks in once more, as if the clouds its ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the divine inhabitants of the heavens in general—it would be easier there to gain attention than on the surface of the earth. Then there was the belief, that the god to whom the place was dedicated would come down to such a sanctuary, which thus became, as it were, the stepping-stone between heaven and earth. Sacrifices were also offered at these temple-towers (whether on the highest point or not is not quite certain), in imitation of the Chaldaean Noah, Ut-napistim, who, on coming out of the ark, made an offering /ina zikkurat sade/, "on the peak ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches
... unsupervised, may be done in groups or individually. The former is a stepping-stone to the latter. There is a greater chance for suggestions, for getting the problem worded, for arousing interest and checking results, when a group of children are working together than when a child is by himself. Two ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... that, while the objects of the expedition were commercial and political, Champlain's imagination was kindled by the prospect of finding the long-sought passage to China. To his mind a French colony in America is a stepping-stone, a base of operations for the great quest. De Monts himself doubtless sought honour, adventure, and profit—the profit which might arise from possessing Acadia and controlling the fur trade in 'the river of Canada.' Champlain ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... mile and one hundred and fifty yards wide. Nearly in the middle of the stream there is a rocky island called Inchgarvie, and on this the great striding giant would have to plant one of its ponderous feet. But Inchgarvie was private property, and trespassers were likely to be prosecuted. So the stepping-stone for the giant to place its foot upon could not be laid there until the island had been bought and paid for. This being done, a huge caisson, similar to those which we have seen sunk under the piers of Brooklyn Bridge, was floated ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... reaching Winnipeg was all very well as a start. It had paid so well that the original group of men had become millionaires almost overnight. But Hill meant to show the public that, after all, the early success was only an incident and merely a stepping-stone to ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... some secret it might profit him to gain. For Randal Leslie hated Egerton; and hated him the more because, with all his book-knowledge and his conceit in his own talents, he could not despise his patron; because he had not yet succeeded in making his patron the mere tool or stepping-stone; because he thought that Egerton's keen eye saw through his wily heart, even while, as if in profound disdain, the minister helped the protege. But this last suspicion was unsound. Egerton had not detected Leslie's corrupt and treacherous nature. He might have other reasons for ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... consists of assumption, by which I mean theory and hypothesis, from that which is the knowledge of facts and laws.' Faraday himself, in fact, was always 'guessing by hypothesis,' and making theoretic divination the stepping-stone to his experimental results. ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... of the nineteenth century, it is easy to select two instances of this enrichment of the fundamental idea, as the direct consequence of an unexpected obstacle which the artist refused to consider a stumbling-block, preferring to make it a stepping-stone to ...
— Inquiries and Opinions • Brander Matthews
... knowledge, we must as clearly recognize that the intellect is not the centre and essence of man's being. Knowledge, while the surest form of wealth of which no one can rob us, and the best as the stepping-stone to the highest well-being, is like wealth in one respect: it is not character and can be used for good or evil. If my neighbor uses his greater knowledge as a means of overreaching us all, it injures us and ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... others, and forthwith they started on their travels. Soon they came to a little brook, and as there was no stepping-stone, and no bridge, they could not tell how they were to get to the other side. The straw was struck with a good ...
— Household Stories by the Brothers Grimm • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... not falter before her victory. She knew that Maximilian rated the Mexican throne as a stepping-stone to another in Europe. She knew of a certain family pact among the Hapsburgs and how it rankled in Maximilian's breast. Therein he had, on accepting the Mexican throne, solemnly renounced all right of inheritance to that of Austro-Hungary. But she knew also that he considered ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... become a vital and coherent part of the community life, on the one hand translating the rural environment into terms of character and mental efficiency, and on the other hand serving perfectly as a stepping-stone to the city schools and to urban careers; third, to provide adequate high-school facilities ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... event of the day. Although almost engaged to the leaders of the Fronde he had not gone so far but that retreat was possible should the court offer him the advantages for which he was ambitious and to which the coadjutorship was but a stepping-stone. Monsieur de Retz wished to become archbishop in his uncle's place, and cardinal, like Mazarin; and the popular party could with difficulty accord him favors so entirely royal. He therefore hastened to the palace to congratulate the queen on ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... been more glorious than her Crimean triumphs, but it was certainly more important. The true history was far stranger even than the myth. In Miss Nightingale's own eyes the adventure of the Crimea was a mere incident— scarcely more than a useful stepping-stone in her career. It was the fulcrum with which she hoped to move the world; but it was only the fulcrum. For more than a generation she was to sit in secret, working her lever: and her real "life" began at the very moment when, in the popular ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... here, his sense of patriotic duty and his desire to experience the soldier's life were almost indisputably his chief motives. As Governor of New York, however, he could not disguise from himself the fact that that position might prove again, as it had proved in the case of Cleveland, the stepping-stone to the Presidency. On finding, however, that Platt and the Bosses, exasperated by him as Governor, wished to get rid of him by making him Vice-President, and knowing that in the normal course of events a Vice-President ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... them and recruit them. When property becomes so fluctuating, and the love of property so restless and so ardent, I cannot but fear that men may arrive at such a state as to regard every new theory as a peril, every innovation as an irksome toil, every social improvement as a stepping-stone to revolution, and so refuse to move altogether for fear of being moved too far. I dread, and I confess it, lest they should at last so entirely give way to a cowardly love of present enjoyment, as to lose sight of the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... he had ever been in his life. He would leave Aix. Tiens! why should he not go to his good friends the Bocardons at Nimes, bringing with him a gold chain for Bocardon and a pair of ear-rings for the adorable Zette? There he would look about him. He would use the thousand pounds as a stepping-stone to legitimate fortune. Then he would visit the Erringtons in England, and if the beautiful Miss Betty smiled on him—why, after all, sacrebleu he was an honest man, without a feather on ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... through experience. Happiness and true success depend upon how the troubles and difficulties of life are met. Adversity comes to all, but if it is met in the right manner even failure can be made the stepping-stone to success. Trouble comes to all, but, while it makes some people stronger and better in every way, it submerges others so that they never rise again. The trouble is the same, it is how it is met that makes the difference. Those who meet difficulty and adversity in the feeble strength of ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... surveying in a boys' camp have been especially prepared by H. M. Allen. Surveying is an important subject for study and practice, as it is both interesting and useful and may serve as a stepping-stone in the ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... couple of thousand francs. It is just as much trouble to bring out a new name and to induce the public to take up an author and his book, as to make a success with the Theatres etrangers, Victoires et Conquetes, or Memoires sur la Revolution, books that bring in a fortune. I am not here as a stepping-stone to future fame, but to make money, and to find it for men with distinguished names. The manuscripts for which I give a hundred thousand francs pay me better than work by an unknown author who asks six hundred. If I am not ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... vice-president hardly allow scope for great abilities. The office is only a stepping-stone. There was little opportunity to engage in the debates which agitated the country. The duties of judicially presiding over the Senate are not congenial to a man of the hot temper and ambition of Adams; and when party lines were drawn between the Federalists ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... the abbe, who was certainly not unfriendly to the Guises, mingles praise and censure as equal ingredients in sketching the character of the former. If he was "very religious," after Brantome's idea of religion, he was also esteemed a "great hypocrite," with whom religion served as a stepping-stone to greatness. If he was a "holy" man, he was "not too conscientious." If gracious and affable at times, it was only when something had gone wrong with him; for in prosperity no one ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... Orleans; but this, I believe, is the only cloud that has darkened his horizon, or disturbed the tranquil current of his life. His consecration, with its attendant fatigues, must have been to him a wearisome overture to a pleasant drama, a hard stepping-stone to glory. As to the rest, he is very unostentatious, and his conversation is far from austere. On the contrary, he is one of the best-tempered and most cheerful old men in society that it is possible to ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... fifteen four, two for his nob, and one for his heels." The old lady of "The Choughs" liked nothing so much as her game of cribbage in the evenings, and the board lay ready on the little table by her elbow in the cozy bar, a sure stepping-stone to her good graces. Tom somehow became an enthusiast in cribbage, and would always loiter behind his companions for his quiet game; chatting pleasantly while the old lady cut and shuffled the dirty pack, striving keenly for the nightly stake of sixpence, which he seldom failed to lose, and laughingly ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... with the dictates of your conscience. If you are the jury that the Attorney-General hopes you are, gentlemen of the jury, I am wasting time in speaking to you. If you are, gentlemen, that jury which the Attorney-General hopes to make the stepping-stone to the bench—for; gentlemen, I do not accuse the Attorney-General of wishing to prosecute me for the purpose of having me punished; I believe he is above any paltry consideration of that sort—but, gentlemen, all men are influenced by one motive or another, and the Attorney-General, ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... and, in fine, cruelest of all, that she has troops on the frontier; that Courland is not the only place where she has troops. What a stab to the poor old man! "Contumacies?" Has not he been Russia's patient stepping-stone, all along; his anarchic Poland and he accordant in that, if in nothing else? "Let us to Saxony," decides he passionately, "and leave all this." In Saxony his poor old Queen is dead long since; much is dead: Saxony and Life generally, what a Golgotha! He ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Allies redoubted from failure to restore tranquillity in Russia, was that Germany might accomplish it and, owing to her many advantages, might secure a privileged position in the country and use it as a stepping-stone to material prosperity, military strength, and political ascendancy. This feat she could accomplish against considerable odds. She would achieve it easily if the Allies unwittingly helped her, ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... from the country to prevent regretful second thoughts in the mind of his thrifty uncle, and the impression was made that the young fellow might steady down into a useful clerk; but when as much was hinted Roger frankly told him that he regarded business as a stepping-stone merely to the study of the law. The old merchant eyed him askance, but made no response. Occasionally the veteran of the market evinced a glimmer of enthusiasm over a prime article of butter, but anything so intangible as a young man's ambitious dreams was looked upon with a very cynical eye. ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... wild country, the land of the grave hidalgo and the haughty princess. He felt in his strong right arm the power to fight and kill and conquer. Black-bearded villains should capture beautiful maidens on purpose for him to rescue. Van Tiefel was but a stepping-stone; he was not made for the desk of a counting-house. No heights dazzled him; he saw himself being made a peer or a prince, being granted wide domains by a grateful monarch. He was not too low to aspire to the hand of a king's fair daughter; he ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... Simara, Banton, and Sibali [143] (which is called Maestro de Campo by the Spaniards). The province of San Nicolas received those places, for they considered them as the entrance into the Visayas Islands, and a good stepping-stone for their religious to go to the lands of Cebu and Caraga. Consequently, the Recollects began to increase and organize what had until then been useless, in the year one thousand six ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... of strange sensations, and its devouring waves threatened to demolish and engulf the stately structure pride and ambition had combined to rear. A brilliant alliance that insured great wealth, that promised a secure stepping-stone to political preferment, was apparently a substantial bulwark against the swelling billows of an unaccountable whim; yet he was impotent to resist the yearning tenderness which impelled him to forget all else, in one determined effort ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... other, who might have been—But she could think of him only with a shudder now. All the rest seemed indifferent, or censorious, or, worse still, to be using her, like Mrs. Von Brakhiem and even her own father, as a stepping-stone to their personal ambition. Christine could not see that she was to blame for this isolation. She did not understand that cold, selfish natures, like her own and her father's, could not surround themselves with warm, generous friends. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... it is," she insisted. "The woman in your life should be the most beautiful part of it. You chose to make her the stepping-stone to your ambition. Consequently you go through life hungry, you wait till you almost starve, and then suddenly the greatest things in the world which lie to your ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... swears that you were in the gondola with the false mother when the young girl joined her. It is said that the deed, in virtue of which you caused the worthy ecclesiastic's furniture to be carried off, is false, and you are blamed for having made the highest body of the State a stepping-stone to crime. In fine, it is said that, even if you have married the girl, and no doubt of it is entertained, the members of the Council will not be silent as to the fraudulent means you have had recourse to in order to carry out your ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... people on the square even went so far as to pity Macquart. This was the final blow. On the previous day Rougon had been a Brutus, a stoic soul sacrificing his own affections to his country; now he was nothing but an ambitious villain, who felled his brother to the ground and made use of him as a stepping-stone to fortune. ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... criminals who have baffled all the detectives. Hearing their talk Bartley began to realize that journalism might be a very different thing from what he had imagined it in a country printing-office, and that it might not be altogether wise to consider it merely as a stepping-stone to the law. ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... new clothes—what a misfortune it would be to have them soaked. He arose and pushed through the thicket around him into a cart path, and it was then that he saw the thing which proved to be the stepping-stone toward his humble fortunes. It was only a small silk umbrella with a handle tipped with pearl. He seized upon it with joy, for it meant the salvation of his precious clothes. He opened it and held it over his head, ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the terrors of the king; he had been first their dread, then their protector, and, lastly, their guardian: could he be now their hope? Would not this post of mayor of Paris, this vast, civil, and popular dignity, after this long-armed dictatorship in the capital, be to La Fayette but a second stepping-stone that would raise him higher than the throne, and cast the king and constitution into the shade? This man, with his theoretically liberal ideas, was well-intentioned, and wished rather to dominate than to reign; but could any reliance be placed on these good ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... to visit the University, I had hoped to make it only a stage and stepping-stone to something yet more interesting—to visit the Arctic hunters once more, and join them in the most exciting of their pursuits; a chase by the electric light of the great Amphibia of the frozen sea-belt immediately ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... absurd." She flushed hotly. "What hurts me about our marriage is that you, the man, have no option in the matter. I am just a stepping-stone to wealth, so far as you are concerned, ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... poetry, and these very stanzas, as well as many others like them, have affected the lives of large numbers of people. Those born a generation ago not infrequently say that the following stanza from The Ladder of St. Augustine (1850) has been the stepping-stone to their ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... 's a first-rate sort. He helps the Lion to support The royal arms of England's King And keep the Throne from tottering. I wonder what the King would do If his supporters all withdrew? Perhaps he'd try the Stage; a Throne Should be an easy stepping-stone To histrionic Heights, and who Knows till he tries what he can do? The King, with diligence and care, Might rise to ...
— The Mythological Zoo • Oliver Herford
... of an incredible weakness and ignorance of the nature of the cause they were espousing, together with an inconceivable degree of short-sightedness as to the most obvious consequences of it, or of infamous hypocrisy in making the restoration of Shah Soojah only the pretext and stepping-stone to the conquest of Affghanistan, in the most criminal and reckless spirit of imaginary aggrandizement and extension of territory that ever has actuated the rules of India. Will they pretend that it was really designed, and necessarily ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... would have forgiven the offender and allowed him to remain in his seat. There would have been a scene, and the Earl would have been pacified. But now the offender was beyond his reach altogether, having used the borough as a most convenient stepping-stone over his difficulties, and having so used it just at the time when he was committing this sin. There was a good fortune about Phineas which added greatly to the lord's wrath. And then, to tell the truth, he had not that rich consolation for which Phineas ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... Princess sent you. In the first week of the new year I shall send you the score of my "Kunstler" chorus, which I have had autographed here. Devote a quarter of an hour to it, and tell me plainly your opinion of the composition, which of course I look upon only as a stepping-stone to other things. If you find it bad, bombastic, mistaken, tell me so without hesitation. You may be convinced that I am not in the least vain of my works; and if I do not produce anything good and beautiful all my life, I shall none the less continue to feel genuine ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... lips, but with heaviness and distrust at his heart; for, whatever may be the varieties of our religious creeds, let us depend on the mediation of Christ, the dogmas of Mahomet, or the elaborated allegories of the East, there is a conviction, common to all men, that death is but the stepping-stone between this and a more elevated state of being. Sergeant Dunham was a brave man; but he was departing for a country in which resolution could avail him nothing; and as he felt himself gradually loosened from the grasp of the world, his thoughts and feelings took ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... the service," said Mr Johnson. "Perhaps I have been dreaming, when living on in hopes that some change might be made whereby I might benefit myself, that is, rise in the service, which has ever been my ambition. Why should not a warrant be a stepping-stone to a commission through extraordinary good conduct in the navy, just as a sergeant may hope to rise in the army? I don't mean, sir, that I wish to see the present class of boatswains obtain commissions, but with that reward in view, a better class of men would enter the service, and it would ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... contemplative life, inasmuch as man is guided thereby to the knowledge of God. Hence Augustine says (De Vera Relig. xxix) that "in the study of creatures we must not exercise an empty and futile curiosity, but should make them the stepping-stone to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... has been called "the master key of the Mediterranean and the Levant," "the stepping-stone to Egypt and the Dardanelles," and "the connecting link between England and India," is one of our Empire's most valuable possessions, and its physical formation has made it for generations past of great maritime value. The island is, in itself, a rock, and ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... reason to believe," said the Professor, "that my position here will prove to be only a stepping-stone to some wider scene of scientific activity. Yet, even here, my chair brings me in some fifteen hundred pounds a year, which is supplemented by a few hundreds from my books. I should therefore be in a position to provide you with those ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that is nothing! I merely tried to smooth the way for you. I feel such pity for men of talent in misfortune that you may ever count upon my help. Yes, I would go so far as to be the mere stepping-stone over which you ...
— The Resources of Quinola • Honore de Balzac
... Captain's place was in the antechamber, where he could almost hear the conversations between her and her counsellors. To share them he had but to be beckoned within. Naturally the command seemed to be a stepping-stone to a Vice-Chamberlainship at least, if not to the ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... legal principles, from the great variety of supplementary codes (edicta), and the instability of case-law. Moreover, the praetor was seldom a veteran lawyer, but generally a man of moderate experience and ambitious views, who used the praetorship merely as a stepping-stone to the higher offices of state. Hence it was by no means certain that he would be able to appreciate a complicated technical argument, and as a matter of fact the more popular advocates rarely troubled themselves to ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... place in society would not come from the caprice or forgetfulness of his employer, but from his own peculiar temptations and weaknesses. If he could patiently do his duty in his present humble position, he justly believed that it would be the stepping-stone to something better. But, having learned to know himself, he was afraid of himself; and he had seen with an infinite dread what cold, dark depths yawn about one whom society shakes off as a vile and venomous thing, and who must eventually take evil and its consequences ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... would form a powerful combination. In fact, the great value of the position of Culebra being its distance toward the enemy, which necessitates a great distance away from our continental coast, and a long line of communications from that coast suggest an intermediate base as a support and stepping-stone. Analogous cases are seen in all the countries of Europe, in the fortresses that are behind their boundary-lines—the fortresses existing less as individuals than as supporting members of ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... medium.] Connection — N. vinculum, link; connective, connection; junction &c 43; bond of union, copula, hyphen, intermedium^; bracket; bridge, stepping-stone, isthmus. bond, tendon, tendril; fiber; cord, cordage; riband, ribbon, rope, guy, cable, line, halser^, hawser, painter, moorings, wire, chain; string &c (filament) 205. fastener, fastening, tie; ligament, ligature; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... eradicate. She realized at last when the demands of her campaign made themselves heard, that there was something she had hitherto completely ignored. There was the woman's heart of her. She had most absurdly fallen in love with this first stepping-stone toward the goal of her ambition. It was the absurd uncalculating love of extreme youth. But it was sufficiently impetuous to flout all the reason which her training and upbringing had been calculated ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... stood like the Colossus of Rhodes, with one foot on one stepping-stone, and the other on another three feet away. It is hard for even a janitor to be dignified in such a position, and while he was gathering his scattered impressions Patty looked longingly around the room for some one to enjoy the spectacle with her. She felt that the silence was becoming ominous, however, ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... so that the youths in the gymnasia, and the older men in their places of business or of recreation, did nothing but sketch the outline of the island of Sicily and of the adjacent seas and continents. They regarded Sicily not so much as a prize to be won, but as a stepping-stone to greater conquests, meaning from it to attack Carthage, and make themselves masters of the Mediterranean sea as far as the Columns of Herakles. Public opinion being thus biassed, Nikias could find few to help ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... fuss. His motive, as has already been stated, was a political one. He wished to ingratiate himself with Irish voters and obtain an election as representative; not that he cared so much for this office, except as a stepping-stone to something higher. ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... Mexicans won't get converted all at once, and they won't become like us, ever. But I'm about ready to say that whether missions are needed anywhere else or not, they surely are needed in Mexico. And Mexico is the first stepping-stone to South America; which is next on my list of the places that ought to have the whole scheme of Christian teaching ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... House of Commons, in deciding matters of election, was bound to judge according to the law of the land, and the known and established law of Parliament, which was part thereof.'" It was understood that this resolution, if carried, was intended as a stepping-stone to others which should condemn the decision of the previous session; yet it seemed such a truism that even the ministers could not venture to deny it; but they proposed to defeat the object of its framers by adding to it a declaration that the late decision was ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... person. Rumour has credited me with having aspired to the command of this force, but erroneously so. My ambition was to work myself up at Court, and only to take the command if forced on me as a provisional matter, and as a stepping-stone to my real object, which was, when my knowledge of the language was perfected, to acquire at Peking some such influence as that possessed by Verbiest and the other French missionaries in the seventeenth ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... for mate! One of those sensuous self-seekers who would use her as a stepping-stone, and, having obtained supreme power through her dainty hands, would cast her aside as a useless tool and break her heart ere she realised ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Micheline; she had been the stepping-stone to fortune for him; he knew that she was gentle and thought her not very discerning. He could easily deceive her; with a few caresses and a little consideration he could maintain the illusion of his love for her. Madame Desvarennes alone inconvenienced ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... not only an additional security for the past, not only a pillar more for the maintenance of the Ghent Pacification, but also a sure precursor of a closer union in the future. The Union of Brussels became, in fact, the stepping-stone to the "Union of Utrecht," itself the foundation-stone of a republic destined to endure more than two centuries. On the other hand, this early union held the seed, of its own destruction within itself. It was not surprising, however, that a strong declaration in favor of the Catholic religion ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... he is ambitious," said Gregory, smiling. "One man's ambition is for high position, another's an illustrious alliance: the former will owe everything to himself, the latter will make a stepping-stone of his wife, then they raise their eyes ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... born and bred looks fairly out upon this planet. The astronomer who instructs him is often of just the sort for the labor, a being also climbing, one not to be a high-school principal forever, but using this occupation merely as a stepping-stone upon his ascending journey. If he be conscientious, he instils, together with his information that all Gaul is divided and that a parasang is not something to eat, also the belief that the game sought ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... at the notion of my pining for Mr. Glengelly's arrival, and a laugh is an excellent stepping-stone out of the sulks. My mother put her watch on the table, and stayed in the room, helping me by quiet sympathizing superintendence, and I set to work with such earnestness that I had completed my tasks in twenty ...
— The Story of the White-Rock Cove • Anonymous
... this fact led almost immediately to the Method of Tangents of Fermat and Barrow; and this again is the stepping-stone to the Differential Calculus,—itself a particular application of that instrument. Dr. Barrow regarded the tangent as merely the prolongation of any one of these infinitely small sides, and demonstrated ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... thus rewarded, and it consequently initiated a custom which became most frequent especially in the time of the empire. Upon the conquest of Italy which followed the expedition of Pyrrhus, the Romans found themselves led into a long series of foreign wars; Sicily furnished the stepping-stone to Africa; Africa to Spain; all these countries becoming Roman provinces. As soon as the second Punic war closed, Hannibal formed an alliance with the king of Macedonia. A war-cloud rose[18] in the east. The AEtolians asked aid from Rome, and statesmen could foretell that it would be impossible ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... this adoption would have been applied to more extensive uses, and as a station of vantage for introducing him to the public favor. From the inheritance of the Julian estates and family honors, he would have been trained to mount, as from a stepping-stone, to the inheritance of the Julian power and political station; and the Roman people would have been familiarized to regard him in that character. But, luckily for himself, the finishing, or ceremonial acts, were yet wanting in this process—the political heirship was inchoate and imperfect. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... an almost exclusive part in the management, and dissenters were excluded even from entering Oxford as students.[22] But the clergyman did not as a rule devote himself to a life of study. He could not marry as a fellow, but he made no vows of celibacy. The college, therefore, was merely a stepping-stone on the way to the usual course of preferment. A fellow looked forwards to settling in a college living, or if he had the luck to act as tutor to a nobleman, he might soar to a deanery or a bishopric. The fellows who ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... of rivered blue, that sunset dyes With glaucous flame, deep in the west the Day Stands Midas-like; or, wading on his way, Touches with splendor all the twilight skies. Each cloud that, like a stepping-stone, he tries With rosy foot, transforms its sober gray To burning gold; while, ray on crystal ray, Within his wake the stars like bubbles rise. So should the artist in his work accord All things with beauty, and communicate His soul's high magic and divinity To all he does; and, hoping no reward, ...
— Weeds by the Wall - Verses • Madison J. Cawein
... foundation, or trace more direct paths for the workers of a later period, then it behooves us to give it a hearty welcome, and to work out its principles with zealous good will: and "working out" its principles means, not accepting it as a finality—a piece of flawless perfection—but as a stepping-stone which will lead us nearer to the truth. If it is a good thing, it is good for all; if it is truth, we want it everywhere; but if this new department of education and training is to gain ground, or accomplish the successful fruition ...
— Children's Rights and Others • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... were one straight over the other, and the floor of the one formed the ceiling of the other. The fourth cell was in ruins. Two broken pillars lying one on the other presented a very convenient stepping-stone to the fifth story. But the colonel stopped our zeal by saying that now was the time to smoke "the pipe of deliberation" after the fashion of ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... schools, his elder brother Henry was rejoicing his father's heart by his career at the University. He soon distinguished himself at the examinations, and obtained a scholarship in 1743. This is a collegiate distinction which serves as a stepping-stone in any of the learned professions, and which leads to advancement in the University should the individual choose to remain there. His father now trusted that he would push forward for that comfortable ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... sacrifice of his fortune, and though anything of that kind was still very far off, it was daily more difficult for him to face with equanimity even moderate losses. Money had fostered ambition, and ambition full grown had more need than ever of its nurse. New Wanley was no longer an end in itself, but a stepping-stone You must come to your own conclusions in judging the value of Mutimer's social zeal; the facts of his life up to this time are before you, and you will not forget how complex a matter is the mind of ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... glibly. The salesman, who wore blue-and-white-striped soft collars with a bar pin across the front, does not even enter the story. He was only a stepping-stone. From him the ascent or descent, or whatever you choose to call it, was ...
— The Vertical City • Fannie Hurst
... in this house; why not? well, it's not a habit of ours, that's all," Mme. Verdurin replied, while Dr. Cottard gazed at her with open-mouthed admiration, and yearned to be able to follow her as she skipped lightly from one stepping-stone to another of her stock of ready-made phrases. Both he, however, and Mme. Cottard, with a kind of common sense which is shared by many people of humble origin, would always take care not to express an opinion, or to ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... Blanc, Mount Cervin, and Mount Rosa, piled one upon the other, would make at best but a stepping-stone to it. Judge, then, of Milord's transports in the presence of this giant, whose hoary head was lost in the clouds! They might rob him of Chimborazo, but Tschamalouri ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... of being crushed by the sense of failure. What seek you from me, miserable time-server? Have you not had your reward for the service you have rendered the King? Is he not grateful enough? I have served as your stepping-stone to promotion. What ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... scarce, and polyandry would not have been practised; for hardly any other cause, except the scarcity of women seems sufficient to break down the natural and widely prevalent feeling of jealousy, and the desire of each male to possess a female for himself. Polyandry would be a natural stepping-stone to communal marriages or almost promiscuous intercourse; though the best authorities believe that this latter habit preceded polyandry. During primordial times there would be no early betrothals, for this implies foresight. Nor would ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin |
