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More "Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... henceforward seek to consolidate her internal prosperity! No external power will disturb her internal peace, no enemy will encroach upon her rightful frontiers.—But may France also learn that the other powers of Europe aspire to the attainment of durable repose for their subjects, and will not lay down their arms until the independence of every state in Europe shall have ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... lift me higher, Josephine! From the Eternal Hills hast thou not seen How I do strive for heights? but lacking wings, I cannot grasp at once those better things To which I in my inmost soul aspire. Lean down and ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... may have been fearful of even one of the consequences of victory; for would it not be a source of danger to him and his family were one of his marshals so to distinguish himself in a great war as to become the first man in France? The general of a legitimate sovereign can never aspire to his master's throne; but the French throne is fair prize for any man who should be able to conquer the conquerors of Sadowa. The Emperor's health would not permit him to lead his army in person, as he did in the Italian campaign; and that one of his lieutenants ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... "Aspire, my soul, to glorious deeds, The Captain of salvation leads; March on, nor fear to win the day, Though death and hell obstruct ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... science, the pionier of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authour may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... wives and children will quickly find relief, For the loss of those brave heroes, their hearts are filled with grief, And may our warlike officers aspire to such a fame, And revenge the death of Nelson, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Kant was not concerned to challenge his opponent's definition of man's reasoning power. His sole object was to show that, if one accepted this definition, one must not go as far as Hume in the application of this power. All that Kant could aspire to do was to protect the ethical from attack by the intellectual part of man, and to do this by proving that the former belongs to a world into which the latter has no access. For with his will man belongs to a world of purposeful doing, ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... if you love dancing and aspire to make it a career, you possess an innate sense of rhythm. You feel the swing of music and love to move your body to the strains of a lilting melody. The first great possessions of the successful stage dancer are ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of Space—out of Time. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms and caves and Titan woods, 10 With forms that no man can discover For the tears that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, 15 Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead,— Their still waters, still and chilly With the snows ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... obliged to indulge in lofty reflections about philosophy, history, or economics; we are not on the plane of theories, and we can remain on the level of observable facts. We have to question men who take a very active part in the real revolutionary movement amidst the proletariat, men who do not aspire to climb into the middle class and whose mind is not dominated by corporative prejudices. These men may be deceived about an infinite number of political, economical, or moral questions; but their testimony is decisive, sovereign, and irrefutable when it is a question ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... this girl. I know her kind, I know her breed. I want to save you from—well, I want to give you a fighting chance to be a great, good man. You need the love of a fine, unselfish woman to help you to the heights you aspire to reach. Anne Tresslyn would not have helped you. She cannot see above her own level. There are no heights for her. She belongs to the class that never looks up from the ground. They are always following ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... abides the British Press, Which men must credit, more or less, To tell how things are done. So by all bards with hearts of fire Cheerfully be it sung, That still our people may not tire In doing well, but yet aspire; Let these renew TYRTAEUS' lyre, Let others ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... the kingdom of God. We must consequently carry there either an innocence unsullied, or an innocence regained. Now to die innocent is a grace to which few souls can aspire; and to live penitent is a mercy which the relaxed state of our morals renders equally rare. Who, indeed, will pretend to salvation by the chain of innocence? Where are the pure souls in whom sin has never dwelt, and who have ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... was very strange, but the last thing that happened to me before leaving America was to receive the degree of A. M. from Cambridge, but I did not venture to aspire to the other one. And now the first thing that happens to me on my return is to receive your invitation. Gentlemen, ambition can no further go. [Laughter.] As Horace says, a man may change his skies, but not his disposition, and I wish to show you that I have not forgotten my manners while ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... necessary, I could compile an immense volume of authentic evidence to overwhelm you with a sense of the awful failure of our civilization to produce a free, united, healthy, happy and virtuous people, which I conceive to be the goal toward which all good and wise men should aspire. But it is dreary and unpleasant work recounting evil conditions; constantly looking at the sores of society is a morbid and ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... lived there, I could manage—with a girl." She brought out the subordinate clause with some confusion, for the keeping of "a girl" was an ambition to which it was not quite easy to aspire. She thought it best, however, to be bold, and stammered on, "We could get one for ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... inwardly expressed intention,—it was the simple instinctive movement to subjugate the strongest of the other sex who had come in her way, which, as already said, is as natural to a woman as it is to a man to be captivated by the loveliest of those to whom he dares to aspire. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare seize ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... is, and if every one therefore does all his actions for the acquiring the first things according to Nature, then all things which are done must have their reference to this, that the principal things according to Nature may be obtained. But they think that they who aim and aspire to get these things do not have the things themselves as the end, but that to which they must make reference, namely, the choice and not the things. For the end indeed is to choose and receive these things prudently. But the things themselves and the enjoying of them are not the end, ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... women in Europe, to whom these children are playthings. For her there is only Louis Delgado. It is her firing of his dreams which makes him aspire to a throne. It is she who has the determination. He can see visions of power only in the colors of his absinthe glass. She uses men to her ends. Lapas is the latest—unless—" Blanco paused—"unless he is playing two parts, ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... give thee thousand kisses, Hoping what I most desire; Not a mother's fondest wishes Can to greater joys aspire. ...
— The Posy Ring - A Book of Verse for Children • Various
... them. His determination to apply for it seemed, indeed, to himself an act of modesty—almost of sacrifice. As to the technical qualifications required, he was well aware there might be other men better equipped than himself. But, after all, to what may not general ability aspire—general ability properly stiffened ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... this fury leading to? What does this heroism aspire to? This force of will, bitter and strained, grows faint when it has reached its goal, or even before that. It does not know what to do with its victory. It disdains it, does not believe in it, or ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... her counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff's shop did not aspire to that luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff's head and a customer's head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to fix upon a ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... has become aroused to the delight of bringing down big game. That elk was a revelation to him. See how he listens while Billy is telling of the panther tracks he saw not a great way off. I wouldn't put it past Bluff to aspire to knocking over a panther if the ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... retirement and endeavoured to prop up the tottering structure. I cared for nothing, but the salvation of the country. A perusal of our history of several thousand years will reveal in vivid manner the sad fate of the descendants of ancient kings and emperors. What then could have prompted me to aspire to the Throne? Yet while the representatives of the people were unwilling to believe in the sincerity of my refusal of the offer, a section of the people appear to have suspected me of harbouring the desire of gaining more power and privileges. Such difference in thought has resulted in ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... summit of laudable ambitions into the sultry plains of domestic drudgery and menial toil, nearly every ray of hope had perished upon the strained vision of the Negro. The only thing young Colored men could aspire to was the position of a waiter, the avocation of a barber, the place of a house-servant or groom, and teach or preach to their own people with little or no qualifications. Denied the opportunities and facilities of securing an education, they were upbraided ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... powerful influence of religion, and to obtain from the Peninsula fresh supplies of missionaries. As in their nature the latter are essentially different from the other public functionaries, it is well known they neither seek nor aspire to any remuneration for their labors, their only hope being to obtain, in the opinion of the community at large, that degree of respect to which they justly consider themselves entitled. Let, therefore, their pre-eminences be retained ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... imprudent warmth, "it is not the character of the aristocracy of this country to keep people down. They make way amongst themselves for any man, whatever his birth, who has the talent and energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial boast of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Does not one catch the man one wants to catch, without their having any choice? And they really think that they choose ... the fools ... but it is we who choose ... always.... Just think, when one is not ugly, nor stupid, as is the case with us, all men aspire to us, all ... without exception. We look them over from morning till night, and when we have selected one, we fish for him...." "But that does not tell me how you do it?" "How I do it?... Why, I do nothing; ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... himself does little for them, whatever he may be doing for the world at large, or its great heart as you call it. But, what is more still,' cried he with emphasis, and a jump at the same moment, throwing down his tools, 'do you know the Christians have some sense of what is good in our way? they aspire to the elegant, as well as others who are ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... places of mixed and general resort, they meet any of the infamous ministers of their pleasures, they express their affection by a tender embrace; while they proudly decline the salutations of their fellow-citizens, who are not permitted to aspire above the honor of kissing their hands, or their knees. As soon as they have indulged themselves in the refreshment of the bath, they resume their rings, and the other ensigns of their dignity, select from their private wardrobe of the finest ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... and sweetest of earth's fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only—myself. Yet I am a man, and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned sovereign; but I have an arm and a sword that yet might free Schutzenfestenstein ...
— Options • O. Henry
... 'it is no such easy matter, Harmonides, to become a public character, or to gain the prestige and distinction to which you aspire; and if you propose to set about it by performing in public, you will find it a long business, and at the best will never achieve a universal reputation. Where will you find a theatre or circus large enough to admit the whole nation as your ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... reward," said Girofle. "And the hand of a Princess is an honour to which I do not aspire, since I am ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... beyond any, grotesque beyond belief; and its development should be stupendously interesting. It attracted him irresistibly. That he should leave it to his own father to say whether a man born as he was born might aspire to marry his father's ward, had in it something that savored of tragi-comedy. It was a pretty problem, that once set could not be left unsolved by a man of Mr. Caryll's temperament. And, indeed, no sooner was the idea conceived ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... the young man a listless hand. He couldn't forgive Herr Lippheim. That he should ever, under whatever encouragements from Karen's guardian, have dared to aspire to her, was a ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... than the more elaborate flower of the garden or lawn? Because it comes as a surprise, offers a greater contrast with its surroundings, and suggests a spirit in wild nature that seems to take thought of itself and to aspire to beautiful forms. ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... is being constantly improved by voluntary local taxation supplementing the State funds. Every child in Georgia is entitled to receive a thorough education, suited to the station in life to which he can reasonably aspire. This much should be demanded. Nothing less should be accepted as sufficient. May the time soon come when the people of Georgia will realize that money spent to develop the minds and characters of their children is the best investment to be made for ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... me, for I would rather you should have her than some other person." Now I wonder whether the matter will be complicated with Leah—that is, Edra? Leah was considerably older than Rachel, and, like Edra, tender-eyed. I do not aspire or desire to marry both, especially if I should, like Jacob, have to begin with the wrong one, however tender-eyed: but for divine Yoletta I could serve seven years; yea, and fourteen, ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... he remembered one who had sat to him in Paris, and this gave him courage. "So it was two little boys," he said, "who wrecked my studio. Two stupid little boys; two little boys who have been taught their Catechism, and will one day aspire to the priesthood." And that it should be two stupid little boys who had broken his statue seemed significant. "Oh, the ignorance, the crass, the patent ignorance! I am going. This is no place for a sculptor to live ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore
... wits to an admiration of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move stone with his poetry, to build Thebes. And Orpheus to be listened to by beasts indeed, stony and beastly people. So among the Romans were Livius Andronicus, and Ennius. So in the Italian language, the first that made it aspire to be a treasure-house of science were the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch. So in our ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... Transylvania. [Footnote: Phelan, the first historian who really grasped what this movement meant, and to what it was due, gives rather too much weight to the part Henderson played. Henderson certainly at this time did not aspire to form a new State on the Cumberland; the compact especially provided for the speedy admission of Cumberland as a county of North Carolina. The marked difference between the Transylvania and the Cumberland "constitutions," and the close agreement of the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... by thy quiet fire, And hear'st of others' harms, but fearest none: And there thou tell'st of kings, and who aspire, Who fall, who rise, who triumph, who do moan. Perhaps thou talk'st of me, and dost inquire Of my restraint, why here I live alone, And pitiest this my miserable fall; For pity ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... wrong of the desire, Fluttring amidst the flame that doth them burne, Of this last ranke (alas) am I aright, For in my ladies lookes to stand or turne I haue no power, ne find place to retire, Where any darke may shade me from her sight But to her beames so bright whilst I aspire, I perish by the ...
— The Arte of English Poesie • George Puttenham
... from these people of light-hearted lives; that this was why she was and forever must remain, however long and intimate her life among them, an outsider; because what she needed and demanded, the blind and inarticulate impulse which had made her aspire to their society, was not the need of a wide social life, but the need of a ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... aim of politicians is to appear constant and consistent, artists and literary men aspire ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... young girl who was his cousin, but was as poor as himself. Still it was a providential thing for him that she was poor, otherwise he never should have dared to aspire to her. It was a sad occurrence that had first thrown Lescande with his cousin—the loss of her father, who was chief of one of the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... square miles, he could know but little of either it or its people. How dared a "friendless, uneducated boy, working on a flatboat at twelve dollars a month," with "no wealthy or popular friends to recommend" him, aspire to the honors and responsibilities of a legislator? The only answer is that he was prompted by that intuition of genius, that consciousness of powers which justify their claims by their achievements. When we scan the circumstances more closely, we find distinct evidence of some ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... will endure; and, while it guides the dutiful votary to the spot where his ashes are deposited, will teach to those who survey it the supremacy of intellectual and 'moral desert, and encourage them, too, by a like munificence, to aspire to a name as bright as that which stands engraven on ...
— Bay State Monthly, Vol. I, No. 3, March, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... or skies Burnt the ardour of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire— What the hand ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... ambassadors, representatives of sovereign states, have to go the whole round and knock first at every door before being fairly accredited to Society. But once established, be it said in passing, the foreigners have a full revenge accorded them; for in vain the native youth aspire, the freshest belles hover round the titled flames, not perhaps till their wings are singed, but till successive seasons have taught them that Cleopatra's beauty is useless without Cleopatra's pearls. Meantime, to give one last ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... Always more! Ever more! Never quite satisfied! Fortunately, the immortality of the wisdom loving human soul embraces all time, and all eternity! Therefore, through the law of eternal progression, we may naturally and rightfully aspire to the acquirement of all possible knowledge. In cultivating these aspirations, we may rest assured that we shall constantly gain new conceptions and new meanings for the ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... Sally," moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly. "As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for GOD'S ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... social life. Punish by your frowns, by public scorn and private avoidance, the wretch who would cast dishonour on you by the dishonesty of his dealings. The poorest youth of character may justly aspire in this country to the honours of every station, and he will be the more honoured and sought as his fair fame expands itself—an example to his fellows—an ornament to his friends—an honour to his country. One false step in early life (which, had he possessed ...
— Suggestions to the Jews - for improvement in reference to their charities, education, - and general government • Unknown
... thoughtful brow; Serene and warm of heart, and wisely brave, And sagely skill'd, when gurly breezes blow, To press through angry waves the adventurous prow. Age hath not quell'd his strength, nor quench'd desire Of generous deed, nor chill'd his bosom's glow; Yet to a better world his hopes aspire. Ah! this must sure be thee! ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... at the latest, I should have a complete proof of Treasure Island. It will be from 75 to 80,000 words; and with anything like half good pictures, it should sell. I suppose I may at least hope for eight pic's? I aspire after ten or twelve. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... saw my Sunne appeare, But on her rayes with gazing eyes they stood; Which proou'd my birds delighted in the ayre, And that they came of this rare kinglie brood. But now their plumes, full sumd with sweet desire, To shew their kinde began to clime the skies: Doe what I could my Eaglets would aspire, Straight mounting vp to thy celestiall eyes. And thus (my faire) my thoughts away be flowne, And from my breast ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... a fire And motion of the soul which will not dwell In its own narrow being, but aspire Beyond the fitting medium of desire; And, but once kindled, quenchless evermore, Preys upon high adventure, nor can ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... For those who aspire to live in comfort and in a respectable neighborhood, and to occupy a whole house, the average is from five to six thousand dollars. With six thousand dollars a year, a family of five persons, living in a rented house, will be compelled to economise. Those who have ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... strengthen right. Give me the man of sturdy palm And vigorous brain; Hearty, companionable, sane, 'Mid all commotions calm, Yet filled with quick, enthusiastic fire;— Give me the man Whose impulses aspire, And all his features ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... once raised the pinto several points. To be known, and, as Bill's tone indicated, favorably known by The Duke, was a testimonial to which any horse might aspire. ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... every encouragement will be given to those who aspire to high honors by their intellectual ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Government had been projected. The native clergy were terror-stricken. It was decreed that whilst the Filipinos already acting as parish priests would not be deposed, no further appointments would be made, and the most the Philippine novice could aspire to would be the position of coadjutor—practically servant—to the friar incumbent. Moreover, the opportunity was taken to banish to the Ladrone (Marianas) Islands many members of wealthy and influential families whose passive resistance was an eyesore to the ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... which is very Man acted into that which in itself is not life, the formation of anything such as exists in man would be impossible, in whom are thousands of thousands of things that make a one, and that unanimously aspire to an image of the Life from which they spring, that man may become a receptacle and abode of that Life. From all this it can be seen that love, and out of the love the will, and out of the will the heart, strive unceasingly towards the ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... woman. 'Swear it, and I promise to make you as rich as the proudest in the land; rich enough to bend to your wishes the most powerful—even the daughter of Augustin Pena, for whom your passion has not escaped me. This day you may aspire to her hand without being deemed foolish; for I tell you, you are as rich as her own father. Swear, then, to pursue to the death the murderer ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... two emphasized the thought that the purposes behind teaching impose a sacred obligation on the part of those who aspire to teach. But lest the obligation appear burdensome, let us remind ourselves that compensation is one of the great laws of life. "To him who gives shall be given" applies to teaching as to few other things. Verily he who loses his life finds it. The devotion of the real teacher, ...
— Principles of Teaching • Adam S. Bennion
... with pensions and with posts for the services he had rendered to their family and to the State, but that it was too lofty an ambition for a man whose name was Lamartelliere, and who had no relations nor family that could be owned, to aspire to the hand of a girl who was related to a royal house; and that though she did not require that the man who married her cousin should be a Bourbon, a Montmorency, or a Rohan, she did at least desire that he should ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE GANGES—1657 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... in the heart of Islamism a strong germ of esoteric teaching, Sufism could never have sprung from it. The Sufis are the saints of Mohammedanism, they are those who aspire after the union of the individual "I" with the cosmic "I," of man with God; they are frequently endowed with wonderful powers, and their chiefs ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... in vitality. The last word rose in his brain to-day for the first time. Could it be that this mortal lassitude might leave him, neck and heel? That red blood would run in his veins once more? To what end? He was none the less disgraced, none the less unfit to aspire to the hand of Anne Percy. Not only would the world denounce her if she yielded, but his own self-contempt was too deep to permit him to take so much innocent loveliness to himself. But the thought often maddened him, and to-day, as he looked up ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... hold! For while I eulogize, There is another claims a prize And puts to shame all gone before; I mean this humble Yankee boar! What lowly hog did yet aspire To ribboned ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... blood of the AElian family was not privileged to ascend or aspire: it gravitated violently to extinction; and this junior Verus is supposed to have been as much indebted to his assessor on the throne for shielding his obscure vices, and drawing over his defects the ample draperies of the imperatorial ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... has inherited a most beautiful suite of hangings of "applique work;" silks of many kinds are laid on a white brocade ground with every possible variety of stitch, forming richly and gracefully designed patterns; and showing to what cut work can aspire. ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke, this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile! How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics! In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office than one would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius were diverted from office-getting to house-building, what ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... execrable crime! so to aspire Above our brethren, to ourselves assuming Authority usurped from God, not given. He gave us only over beast, fish, fowl, Dominion absolute; that right we hold By his donation: but man over man He made not lord—such title to himself Reserving, human ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... qualifications, even under a Venetian constitution, in an individual who aspired to a post so eminent and responsible. Satisfied with the stars and mitres and official seals, which were periodically apportioned to them, the Marney family did not aspire to the somewhat graceless office of being their distributor. What they aimed at was promotion in their order; and promotion to the highest class. They observed that more than one of the other great "civil and religious liberty" families,—the families who in one century plundered the church ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... experience of some of the most noted and wealthy men in the world, including the self-made men of country. The book is edited by one of the most sucecessful men of the present age, whose own example is in itself guide enough for those who aspire to fame and money. The book will give you ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... America, this country is undone. I desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about most things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, annihilating myself by choice, but dreading folly at an ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... of the bronze Dante, like the reflection of purgatorial flames, and threw long black shadows about us; beyond us it scarcely penetrated the gloom at all, Adriance sat staring at the fire with the weariness of all his life in his eyes, and of all the other lives that must aspire and suffer to make up one such life as his. Somehow the wind with all its world-pain had got into the room, and the cold rain was in our eyes, and the wave came up in both of us at once—that awful, vague, universal pain, ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... had been realized. She was to go to the land of the red-headed stranger where she would be admired and courted, and where, in time, she might aspire to the ultimate honor of having her picture in ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... the other religious products of human nature, in daring to aspire to universal dominion, and that too founded on moral power alone? Never, till Christianity appeared, had such an imagination ever entered the mind of man! Other religions were national affairs; their gods never dreamed of such an enterprise as that of subduing all nations. They were naturally ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... of Poetry—if Homer and Shakespeare are what they are, from the absence of everything didactic about them—may we not thus learn something of what History should be, and in what sense it should aspire to teach? ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... inborn disposition, my primitive stuff, my "old man." And yet if some one will but give me a little love, will but penetrate a little into my inner feeling, I am happy and ask for scarcely anything else. A child's caresses, a friend's talk, are enough to make me gay and expansive. So then I aspire to the infinite, and yet a very little contents me; everything disturbs me and the least thing calms me. I have often surprised in my self the wish for death, and yet my ambitions for happiness scarcely ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... members in addition to the eighty prescribed by the constitution of 1799. Thus, by direct or indirect means, the Senate soon became a strict Napoleonic preserve, to which only the most devoted adherents could aspire. And yet, such is the vanity of human efforts, it was this very body which twelve years later ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... hand; and one of these basins was filled with pieces of gold, the other with precious stones of an inestimable value. Attalus, so long the sport of fortune and of the Goths, was appointed to lead the chorus of the hymeneal song; and the degraded Emperor might aspire to the praise of a skilful musician. The Barbarians enjoyed the insolence of their triumph; and the provincials rejoiced in this alliance, which tempered, by the mild influence of love and reason, the fierce spirit ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... said Bessie. "I spent five minutes over it this morning, and twisted it up three times in order to give it that horrid little handle of a jug look which you all aspire to. Well, well, I don't suppose we need add to our rules that the girls who belong to the ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... started him on the run for the nearest long-distance telephone, but before he had gone twenty feet he stopped. The paper was long since off press and distributed. He had no desire to know what Naylor was saying. He could not even guess. There are heights to which the imagination cannot aspire. ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... a question of common sense. Marriage is my only career. This man's conquest was so easy it startled me and I came down out of the clouds. I don't know a girl in New York to-day who has youth and beauty who does not in her soul of souls aspire to the highest rank and the greatest wealth. This is perhaps the one ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... presumption, she frankly acknowledged the truth of my impression, and, without explaining the reasons for her conduct, deeply regretted the construction I had been led to place upon the circumstance. Yes, my lord, I felt it necessary to apologize to Emily Moseley for presuming to aspire to the honor of possessing so much loveliness and virtue. The accidental advantages of rank and wealth lose all their importance, when opposed to her delicacy, ingenuousness, and ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... invincible, but the ruins of these mistaken and misguided nations line the pathway along which the masses have marched to higher ground. Despotism has in it the seeds of death; the spirit that leads a nation to aspire to a supremacy based on force is the spirit that destroys its hope of immortality. Only those who are unacquainted with the larger influences can place their sole reliance on the weapons used in physical ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the little girl nearly so much, for she knew no matter how sweet and lovely and good a cat might be, it could only aspire to that honor in catland. She did so hate to hear Mr. Clay called old and poor when he was neither. To her he was brave Harry of the West, the ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... man is averse to initiating any of his own people into the secrets and hocus-pocus of his art, as the apprentice, with the knowledge thus gained, might in time become a formidable rival. By adopting a captive this risk is obviated, as under no circumstances could he aspire to the honors of priesthood. In the event of his escape, the only damage would be the loss of an experienced assistant. From this time I was always addressed by my new name TAH-TECK-A-DA-HAIR (the steep ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... of stories, people had acquired the habit of remaining in the condition in which they were placed; they were not irritated by being obliged to stay in it; the soldier who enlisted did not aspire to become an officer; the young officer of the lower noblesse and of small means did not aspire to the post of colonel or lieutenant-general; a limited perspective kept hopes and the imagination ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... Ferrara, Though plied its might by stripling hand, it cut into the marrow. Clan Colla,[122] let them have their due, thy true and gallant following, Strength, kindness, grace, and clannishness, their lofty spirit hallowing. Hot is their ire as flames aspire, the whirling March winds fanning them, Yet search their hearts, no blemish'd parts are found all eyes though scanning them. They rush elate to stern debate, the battle call has never Found tardy cheer or craven fear, or grudge the prey to sever. Ah, fell their wrath! The dance[123] of death ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... ease in Zion." Aspirations are good or bad according to the motive that prompts them. Some are essentially selfish, and such are necessarily evil. If we desire to be or do for selfish advantage, for glory and praise; if we aspire to be leaders, as so many religious people do, only that they may have authority or honor—our aspirations are evil. But each one of us owes it to himself and to God to desire strongly to be and to do his ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... the destiny of our dreams. America believes, America is ready, America can win the race to the future—and we shall. The American dream is a song of hope that rings through night winter air; vivid, tender music that warms our hearts when the least among us aspire to the greatest things: to venture a daring enterprise; to unearth new beauty in music, literature, and art; to discover a new universe inside a tiny silicon chip or ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... to come hither, because you have inspired her with a violent passion. Do but ask her the question; it will be your fault if you do not marry her. It is true, said I, I have had a love for her from the first moment I cast my eyes upon her; but I did not aspire to the happiness of thinking my love acceptable to her. I am entirely hers, and shall not fail to retain a grateful sense of your good offices in that matter. In fine, I made an end of weighing the gold, and while I was putting it into the bag, the eunuch turned to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... require great means of enterprise; Thou art unknown, unfriended, low of birth, A carpenter thy father known, thyself Bred up in poverty and straits at home, Lost in a desert here and hunger-bit. Which way, or from what hope, dost thou aspire To greatness? whence authority deriv'st? What followers, what retinue canst thou gain, Or at thy heels the dizzy multitude, 420 Longer than thou canst feed them on thy cost? Money brings honour, friends, conquest, and realms. What raised Antipater the Edomite, And his son Herod placed on Juda's ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... like yourself in mind of that, and because they tell me the price of these books is fixed and known to all. MR. STOUPE has undertaken the charge of the money for you in cash, and also to see about the most convenient mode of carriage. That you may have all you wish, and all you aspire after, is my ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... learning more of our ways than you have ever really been able to do as yet." This was bitter as gall to him. But in this world all valuable commodities have their price; and when men such as Crosbie aspire to obtain for themselves an alliance with noble families, they must pay the market price for the ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... unprofitable sin of curiosity should be able to withhold me; whereby a man cuts himself off from all action, and becomes the most helpless, pusillanimous, and unweaponed creature in the world, the most unfit and unable to do that which all mortals most aspire to—either to be useful to his friends or to offend his enemies? Or, if it be to be thought a natural proneness, there is against that a much more potent inclination inbred, which about this time of a man's life solicits most—the desire of house and family of his own; to which nothing ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... of Justinian, it became difficult to find a church of Nestorians within the limits of the Roman empire. Beyond those limits they had discovered a new world, in which they might hope for liberty, and aspire to conquest. In Persia, notwithstanding the resistance of the Magi, Christianity had struck a deep root, and the nations of the East reposed under its salutary shade. The catholic, or primate, resided in the capital: in his synods, and in their dioceses, his metropolitans, bishops, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... Eustace, jealous of Rinaldo, whom he was fearful Armida might admire, had persuaded him to aspire to the place of Dudon, to whom a successor must be elected. Gernando of Norway desired the same place, and, angry that the popular Rinaldo should be his rival, scattered through the camp rumors disparaging to his character: Rinaldo was vain and arrogant; Rinaldo was rash, not brave; ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... excellent education, and shown considerable military abilities. In consequence of his precocity of talent, his unquestioned patriotism, and the great services which his family had rendered to the state, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the forces of the republic, and was encouraged to aspire to the office of stadtholder, the highest in the commonwealth. And his power was much increased after the massacre of the De Witts—the innocent victims of popular jealousy, who, though patriotic and illustrious, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titian woods, With forms that no man can discover For the dews that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waters—lone and dead,— Their still waters—still and chilly With the snows ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... overpowers sensual people. They cannot unite him to history, or reconcile him with themselves. As they come to revere their intuitions and aspire to live holily, their own piety explains every ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... an excellent disposition. I thank you. Be well assured, I aspire to more than gratitude! I am convinced that, when arrived at the summit, you will judge me still more worthy to be your friend: and then, monseigneur, we two will do such great deeds that ages hereafter ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... all. Then there are departments, or branches of knowledge, that every man in the middle rank of life, ought, if he can, to acquire, they being, in some sort, necessary to his reputation as a well-informed man, a character to which the farmer and the shopkeeper ought to aspire as well as the lawyer and the surgeon. Let me now, then, offer my advice as to the course of reading, and the manner of reading, for a boy, arrived at his fourteenth year, that being, in my opinion, early enough ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... LITERARY ambition especially, is not a feeling to be cherished in the mind of a woman: would not Mdlle. Henri be much safer and happier if taught to believe that in the quiet discharge of social duties consists her real vocation, than if stimulated to aspire after applause and publicity? She may never marry; scanty as are her resources, obscure as are her connections, uncertain as is her health (for I think her consumptive, her mother died of that complaint), it is more than probable she never will. I do not see how she ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... 'I aspire to be maid of honour to the Grand Duchess of Maasau!' she answered, with a glance towards ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... deliberating to what new qualifications I should aspire, I was summoned into the country, by an account of my father's death. Here I had hopes of being able to distinguish myself, and to support the honour of my family. I therefore bought guns and horses, and, contrary to the expectation of the tenants, increased the salary of the huntsman. But when I ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Thousands of lives might have been spared by the exercise of a little skill; but as it is, the courage of the men is expected to obviate all difficulties. I must confess that so long as I see such incompetency, there is no grade in the army to which I do not aspire." ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... daring courage, manhood's fire, Firm seat and eagle eye, Must he acquire who doth aspire To see ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... a word recall Remorse for the black deed as yet half done, And what he hid from many showed to one: When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where Was now his grateful sense of former care? 160 Where all his hopes to see his name aspire, And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher? His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell, "Tis that! 'tis that! I am in hell! in hell!"[362] No more he said; but urging to the bark His Chief, commits ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... myself, What a strange burlesque is all this! instead of two noble youths, rich in all that nature and fortune can endow them with, here I have a pupil, poor little fellow! deaf, dumb, a castaway; the son of a robber, who at most can aspire only to the rank of an under-jailer, and which, in a little less softened phraseology, would mean to say a sbirro. {2} This reflection confused and disquieted me; yet hardly did I hear the strillo {3} of my little ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... of illustration, we find these pictures to be illuminations from rich pages not observed by the common eye, decorations out of a world the like of which has been but too seldom seen by those who aspire to vision. Chansons sans paroles are they, ringing clearly and flawlessly to the eye as do those songs of Verlaine (with whom he has also some relationship) to the ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... shewn so perfect a regard; but to say I think him, or almost any other man in the world, worthy of yourself, is not within my power with truth. And since you force the confession from me, I declare, I think such beauty, such sense, and such goodness united, might aspire without vanity to the arms of any monarch ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... Patches received yet another lesson—a lesson in the art of forgetting promptly the most disagreeable features of his work—an art very necessary to those who aspire to master real work ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... endeavours to trace, according to his principle of sympathy, the desire of Praise-worthiness, as well as of Praise. We approve certain conduct in others, and are thus disposed to approve the same conduct in ourselves: what we praise as judges of our fellow-men, we deem praise-worthy, and aspire to realize in our own conduct. Some men may differ from us, and may withhold that praise; we may be pained at the circumstance, but we adhere to our love of the praise-worthy, even when it does not bring ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... standard in affluence as well as in poverty. They abhor the very idea of expending in useless waste and vain luxuries, the fruits of prosperous labour; they are employed in establishing their sons and in many other useful purposes: strangers to the honours of monarchy they do not aspire to the possession of affluent fortunes, with which to purchase sounding titles, and ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... good deeds, scorched by temptation's fire, Yet to Thy mercy dares my soul aspire; But wherefore speech prolong, since unto Thee, O Lord, ...
— Hebrew Literature
... flood is that powerful league. Of this mighty Order I am no mean member, but already one of the Chief Commanders, and may well aspire one day to hold the baton of Grand Master. The poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon the necks of Kings—a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed step shall ascend their throne—our gauntlet shall wrench the sceptre from their gripe. Not the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... jolly covies, vot faking do admire, [1] And pledge them British authors who to our line aspire; Who, if they were not gemmen born, like us had kicked at trade, And every one had turned him out a genuine fancy blade, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... meeting, Pringle being much stuck-up. He maketh a speech. Meditations while Pringle is making a speech. The grass is very green. (Great laughter at Pringle's expense.) I will aspire up Telson thinketh he is much, but thou ist not oh, Telson, much at all I spoke boldly and to the point. I am ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... kept me at arms-length; had she not denied me those innocent liberties which our sex, from step to step, aspire to; could I but have gained access to her in her hours of heedlessness and dishabille, [for full dress creates dignity, augments consciousness, and compels distance;] we had familiarized to each other long ago. But keep her up ever ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... Kentish and West Saxon laws are little more than statements of custom or amendments of custom; and while Professor Stubbs claims for the laws of Alfred, thelred, Cnut, and those described as Edward the Confessor's, that they aspire to the character of codes, yet "English law (he adds) from its first to its latest phase, has never possessed an authoritative, constructive, systematic, or approximately exhaustive statement, such as was attempted by the great ...
— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle
... a hundredfold more remunerating. What matters it if Damascus guard jealously the secret of her fragrant clouded steel, when Sheffield can turn out efficient sword-blades at the rate of a thousand per hour? Suum cuique tribuito. Let others aspire to be popular: be it ours to remain irreproachably ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... to succeed there must be a common vehicle of expression and a common plane of thought. It is for this essential preparation that theoretical study alone can provide; and herein lies its practical value for all who aspire to the higher ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... me as you would a child!" she retorted pettishly. "Amuse me, if you aspire to any comradeship with me. Your behaviour does not amuse ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... Stoddard, on October 6, 1850, "there is, to my mind, no English diction for your purposes equal to Milton's in his minor poems. Of course any man would be an intensified ass who should attempt to reach the diction of the 'Paradise Lost', or aspire to the tremendous style of Shakespeare. You must not confound things, though. A Lyric diction is one thing—a Dramatic diction is another, requiring the utmost force and conciseness of expression,—and Epic diction is still another; I conceive it to be something between ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... of her culinary resources for several seconds, and finally brought to the surface what she called "a nice fried sole." Horace would not hear of it, and urged her to aspire to salmon; she substituted smelts, which he opposed by a happy inspiration of turbot and lobster sauce. The sauce, however, presented insuperable difficulties to her mind, and she offered a compromise in the form of cod—which he finally accepted as a fish which the Professor could ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... had a number of relations for whom provision must also be made. To the more prominent courtiers above enumerated was added Jacques d'Albon de Saint-Andre, son of Henry's tutor, who, from accidental intimacy with the king in childhood, was led to aspire to high dignities in the state, and was not long in obtaining a marshal's baton.[552] Herself securing not only the rank of Duchess of Valentinois, with the authority of a queen,[553] but the enormous revenues derived from the customary confirmation ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... to comprehend the genius and the full import of institutions so opposite to those of our own free republic, where every man, however humble his condition, may aspire to the highest honors of the state,—may select his own career, and carve out his fortune in his own way; where the light of knowledge, instead of being concentrated on a chosen few, is shed abroad like the light of day, and suffered to fall equally ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... undecided; since they both still use the language, the same customs and the same laws. For, as of old they lived alike poor and alike free, equal proved the evils and advantages on each side the river, and common to both people. The Treverians and Nervians aspire passionately to the reputation of being descended from the Germans; since by the glory of this original, they would escape all imputation of resembling the Gauls in person and effeminacy. Such as ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... could manage—with a girl." She brought out the subordinate clause with some confusion, for the keeping of "a girl" was an ambition to which it was not quite easy to aspire. She thought it best, however, to be bold, and stammered on, "We could get one for about ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... appease his thirst by drinking, only excites it the more. I have suppressed many details to which I may later return if I learn that they afford pleasure to Your Holiness, charged with the weight of religious questions and sitting at the summit of the honours to which men may aspire. It is in no sense for my personal pleasure that I have collected these facts, for only the desire to please Your Beatitude has induced me ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... exhorted me to set about writing a History of Ireland, and archly remarked, there had been some good Irish writers, and that one Irishman might at least aspire to be equal to another. He had great compassion for the miseries and distresses of the Irish nation, particularly the Papists; and severely reprobated the barbarous debilitating policy of the British government, which, he said, was the most detestable ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... they then divide and disunite The ribs and limbs, observant of the rite: On these, in double cauls involved with art, The choicest morsels lay from every part. The sacred sage before his altar stands, Turns the burnt offering with his holy hands, And pours the wine, and bids the flames aspire; The youth with instruments surround the fire. The thighs now sacrificed, and entrails dress'd, The assistants part, transfix, and broil the rest While these officious tend the rites divine, The last fair branch of the Nestorean line, Sweet Polycaste, took the pleasing toil To bathe the prince, and ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... dinner gown, and carrying her regal head as if the earth belonged to her, he really saw no reason why he, with his qualifications of comparative youth, good looks (his sort of good looks), and notorious pulpit eloquence, should not aspire to rush in where so many feared to tread. His rush had been checked at the outset, but he was still unaware of the nature of the barrier that Deb held rigid between them. He continued to gaze at her with his ardent little black eyes as if no barrier were there. And it was because he did ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... that station of honor, which he now believes will satisfy him, and his ambition would aspire to one more exalted. Let him govern one kingdom, and he would desire to subjugate another till the whole world bowed to his nod. And were every star an inhabited world, and did he possess means to invade them, his ambition would continue to soar till he ruled the universe, and were there no ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... aspire to Shakespearian production, he used the great bard's works as models for appraising other plays. "Shakespeare invented farce comedy," he once said, "and whenever I consider the purchase of such a thing ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... constitution, in an individual who aspired to a post so eminent and responsible. Satisfied with the stars and mitres and official seals, which were periodically apportioned to them, the Marney family did not aspire to the somewhat graceless office of being their distributor. What they aimed at was promotion in their order; and promotion to the highest class. They observed that more than one of the other great "civil ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Arabia and East Africa, but it is carried to the fore like a toucan's crest. Some, by way of coquetterie, trace upon the scalp a complicated network, showing the finest and narrowest lines of black wool and pale skin: so the old traveller tells us "the heads of those who aspire to glory in apparel resemble a parterre, you see alleys and figures traced on them with a great deal of ingenuity." The bosom, elaborately bound downwards, is covered with a square bit of stuff, or a calico pagne—most ungraceful of ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... taken up a homestead. Now the free lands were gone. In earlier days a man who began with pick and shovel might have come to own a mine. That outlet too was now closed, as regards the immense majority, and few, if any, of the one hundred and fifty thousand mine workers could ever aspire to enter the small circle of men who held in their grasp the great anthracite industry. The majority of the men who earned wages in the coal industry, if they wished to progress at all, were compelled to progress not by ceasing to be wage-earners, but by improving ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... from the root Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves More aery: last the bright consummate flower Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit, Man's nourishment, by gradual scale sublim'd, To vital spirits aspire: to animal: To intellectual!—give both life and sense, Fancy and understanding; whence the soul REASON receives, and reason is her ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... regulating the trade of the colonies. Yet they cannot conceive, and humbly insist it is not essential to support a proper relation between the mother country and colonies transplanted from her, that she should have a right to raise money from them without their consent, and presume they do not aspire to more than the natural rights of British subjects when they assert that no power on earth has a right to impose taxes on the people, or take the smallest portion of their property, without their consent given by their representatives in ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... Paradise heard that a man had dared to aspire to be as the Gods. Time after time he had fought the Titans, who were his peers, and kept them out of his kingdom; yet he feared a man whose power ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore
... very young girl who was his cousin, but was as poor as himself. Still it was a providential thing for him that she was poor, otherwise he never should have dared to aspire to her. It was a sad occurrence that had first thrown Lescande with his cousin—the loss of her father, who was chief of one of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... termination. It is also the name of the sixth month of the Maya calendar. Axul would therefore be thy end. Among all the nations which have recognized the existence of a SUPREME BEING, Deity has been considered as the beginning and end of all things, to which all aspire to ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... climates of the globe have felt the vicissitudes of light and darkness. Yet the experience of four thousand years should enlarge our hopes and diminish our apprehensions; we cannot determine to what height the human species may aspire in their advances towards perfection; but it may safely be presumed that no people, unless the face of nature is changed, will relapse into their original barbarism." [Footnote: Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... least idea that piece of luck would fall in my way. Meta managed that for me most delightfully. You know, girls, how earnestly the poor dear Elliot-Smiths aspire, and how vain are their efforts, to get into what we are pleased to call the 'good set' here. It isn't their fault, poor things, for, though they really have no talent nor the smallest literary desires, they would give their eyes ...
— A Sweet Girl Graduate • Mrs. L.T. Meade
... through all the early years of struggle: a struggle which has begun again—a struggle the details of which were not even told her, and which she has no curiosity to hear. She is content to work on to the end, believing that it was God's will for her to do so. The lay sisters can aspire to none of the convent offices; they have none of the smaller distractions of receiving guests, and instructing converts and so forth, and not to have as much time for prayer as they desire is their penance. They are humble folk, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... established belief on a thousand sides. The young Henry was welcomed by Erasmus as likely to be the glory of the age that was opening. He was young, brilliant, cultivated, and ambitious. To what might he not aspire under the new conditions! Henry VIII. was all that, but he was cautious and looked about him. Europe was full of wars in which he was likely to be entangled. His father had left the treasury well furnished. The young King, like a wise man, turned his first ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... husband. Why was I unhappy? Why is any woman unhappy? Because her love is trampled on, degraded—the spiritual part of it unsatisfied. Women are made for love and without love life means nothing to them. Women are naturally finer than men, they aspire more strongly to what is beautiful and spiritual, but their souls can be coarsened, their love can be killed. They can be driven—they have been driven for centuries (through fear of men) into lies and deceits and sensuality ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... commonwealth, therefore, a citizen may by many means and in many ways aspire to the princedom without risking destruction, both because republics are slower than princes are to take alarm, are less suspicious and consequently less cautious, and because they look with greater reverence upon their great citizens, who are in this way rendered ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... I could only convince Elsie of his true character she would detest him as thoroughly as I do. If he had his deserts, he would be in the State's Prison; and to think of his daring to approach my child, and even aspire to her hand!" ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... give my dear people at home some idea of the beauties we have out here," exclaimed D'Arcy, who happened to look in the day Sophy had finished her sketch. "I should be so thankful if you could make a copy for me; still more so if I might aspire to possess ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... concur in thinking that want of money do do the most of it, but that that is not all, but the having of gentlemen Captains, who discourage all Tarpaulins, and have given out that they would in a little time bring it to that pass that a Tarpaulin should not dare to aspire to more than to be a Boatswain or a gunner. That this makes the Sea Captains to lose their own good affections to the service, and to instil it into the seamen also, and that the seamen do see it themselves and resent it; and tells us ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... is on a different principle from that of Irving and Cayley. He does not aspire to present Spain as it affected him,—but Spain as it is. His travelling party consisted of two ladies and two gentlemen—an arrangement fatal to romance. To go out on a serenading adventure in wicked Madrid is ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... I did not see him. He is regarded as one of the ablest men in the service. His rise has been rapid, and he was lately invested with the C.I.E.—there seems, indeed, to be no position in Burma that he might not aspire to. In his absence his office was being administered by the Assistant Commissioner, a courteous young Englishman, who gave me my first experience of the Civil Service. I could not but envy the position of this young fellow, and marvel at the success which attends our method of ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... scribe— "Who are the chiefs of the marauding tribe?" Lo! high Parnassus, lifting from the plain, Upon his hoary peak, a noble fane! Within that temple all the names are scrolled Of village bards upon a slab of gold; To that bad eminence, my friend, aspire, And copy thou the Roll of Fame, entire. Yet not to total shame those names devote, But add in mercy this explaining note: "These cheat because the law makes theft a crime, And they obey all ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... by stripling hand, it cut into the marrow. Clan Colla,[122] let them have their due, thy true and gallant following, Strength, kindness, grace, and clannishness, their lofty spirit hallowing. Hot is their ire as flames aspire, the whirling March winds fanning them, Yet search their hearts, no blemish'd parts are found all eyes though scanning them. They rush elate to stern debate, the battle call has never Found tardy cheer or craven fear, or grudge the prey to sever. Ah, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... of which, Dr. Mayo, has turned out some very distinguished pupils, of whom I was not fated to be one; for, after a year or so of futile attempt on my part to learn something, and give promise that I might aspire to the woolsack or the premiership, I was pronounced hopeless; and having declared myself anxious to emulate the deeds of Nelson, and other celebrated sailors, it was decided that I should enter the navy, and steps were taken to send me at ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... will be found in these volumes derive their chief value from the fact that they are recorded by a bystander and spectator, who was not, and did not aspire to be, an actor in the occurrences he witnessed, but who lived on terms of intimacy with many of the most active politicians of his times, in both the leading parties in the State, although he strictly belonged to ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... productive power, they are made, as one may say, into cashiers. They receive appointments; the rank and file of engineers is made up of them; they are employed as captains of artillery; there is no (subaltern) grade to which they may not aspire. Finally, when these men, the pick of the youth of the nation, fattened on mathematics and stuffed with knowledge, have attained the age of fifty years, they have their reward, and receive as the price of their services the third-floor lodging, the wife and family, and ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... Good looks, good birth, good-humor, and good assurance will do much; but the want of one or more of these will not invalidate the election, nor the union of all four insure it. It must be very pleasant to serve in the compagnie d'elite. They have privileges to which the Line may not aspire. It does not much matter what they do. Their victories make them no enemies, and their defeats raise them up hosts of sympathizers and apologists. When they err gravely, if you hint at the misdemeanor, a "true believer" ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... which woman has been accustomed to be treated, and which have made her either the slave, the toy, or the ridicule of man; and it is getting to see that she is at least of as much relative importance as man; that without her he will in vain aspire to rise; that, by a law as infallible as that which moves and regulates the spheres, his condition is determined by hers; that wherever she has been a slave, he has been a tyrant, and that all oppression and injustice ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... negligent scribes, the share of each one might be put in the scale of his iniquities. Should he have survived the invention of printing, surely this most properly meticulous fiend must to-day be assuming the heavy task of collecting the misprints scattered throughout the books which aspire to exactitude; it would be very foolish of him to trouble about others. As occasion requires he will place those misprints to the account of reader or author. I am infinitely indebted to my publishers and friends MM. Calmann, Levy and to ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... any measure determine the success by what we behold of it. It is to us at best but a truncated spire, whose want of completion may be the greater because of the breadth of its base, and its slow taper, indicating the lofty height to which it is intended to aspire. The idea of our own life is more than we can embrace. It is not ours, but God's, and fades away into the infinite. Our comprehension is finite; we ourselves infinite. We can only trust in God and do the truth; then, and then only, ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... than all the rest; and thou art not the last man, who has seemed a hopeless and helpless wreck, unable to exercise the faith that seemed so natural to others; but who, after a time, under the teaching of Jesus, has been enabled to assume a position to which none of his associates could aspire! ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... always for the advice that seemed palatable to the Prince, no matter if it was good or bad; and seems upon the whole (like the gambler he was all through life) to have had less regard to the chances of the campaign than to the greatness of favour he might aspire to, if, by any luck, it should succeed. For the rest, he did very well in the field; no one questioned that: for he was ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and put it into a good Vial full of Spring water, so as the upper part of the Mint was above the neck of the Glass, and the lower part Immers'd in the Water; within a few Dayes this Mint began to shoot forth Roots into the Water, and to display its Leaves, and aspire upwards; and in a short time it had numerous Roots and Leaves, and these very strong and fragrant of the Odour of the Mint: but the Heat of my Chamber, as I suppose, kill'd the Plant when it was grown to have a pretty thick Stalk, which with ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... that nothing is so high and lofty to which Bucolicks may not successfully aspire. But if this be so, what will become of Macrobius, Georgius Valla, Julius Scaliger, Vossius, and the whole company of Grammarians? who all affirm that simplicity and meanness is so essential to Pastorals, that it ought to be confin'd ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... sublime privilege of prolonging life in our hearts for a time by the life of the work we leave behind us would be (if we could only be sure of gaining it at last) a reward indeed for all the labor undertaken by those who aspire to ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... 11 [Aspire my soul, to glorious deeds, The "Captain of salvation" leads; March on, nor fear to win the day, Tho' death and hell ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... should say more, accept my sincere wishes for your happiness; and believe me when I say that the lot which you have chosen is, in my estimation, the highest to which man can aspire, and may your labors be blessed with ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... close of the sixteenth century or at the beginning of the seventeenth century, from Flanders, was one of the most distinguished of the town. It had even counted among its illustrious members a Seville Veinticuatro, and no one who was unable to present proof of noble lineage could aspire to that distinction.[1] ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer
... this fool game and pay the same amount of attention to your political fortunes,' I said to him, 'you would have a right to aspire to the Presidency of the United States.' And what do you suppose ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... multitude; for He is mightier than they and does not forsake them, who trust in him and serve him. And we must warn the people also not to plunge themselves into ruin by sedition. Tumults are generally excited by those who aspire after honors and riches. Now, that it may not seem as if Christians care more for the human than the divine, they should obey even tyrants in things, that only oppress the body, and pay taxes to them, so that the Gospel may not be reviled on their account. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... his Posterity, and all Christendome, for all his Alliance with so many great Princes, which put on him aspiring thoughts, and was so ambitious as not to content himselfe with his hereditary patrimony of one of the greatest Princes in Germany; but must aspire to a Kingdome, beleeving that his great allyance would carry him through any enterprise, or bring him off with honour, in both which he failed; being cast out of his own Country with shame, and he and his, ever after, living upon the devotion of other ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... and more wide, the kindling bosom swells, As love inspires, and truth its wonders tells, The soul enraptured tunes the sacred lyre, And bids a worm of earth to heaven aspire, 'Mid solar systems numberless, to soar, The death of ...
— Added Upon - A Story • Nephi Anderson
... then, how she is situated," replied Victorine. "From infancy has Caliste been taught to aspire to the rose, every year has she ardently expected it; now this time her name is on the list, and her own sister, younger by three years, steps forward and takes it from her. Our parents, too, rejoice with the child that rejoices; ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... arms, O Lady of my heart, I die, to greater fame I'll not aspire, Content upon thy bosom to expire Whilst kissing thee and thus ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... eyes have track'd the conquering foe, And in calm torpor watch'd each new o'erthrow! Yon troop of peasants, ignorantly gay, Who waste in careless sports the passing day, Soon shall behold the waving sheets of fire, Sent from their peaceful domes, to heaven aspire. Each year, each month, new towns with ruin smoke, And province after province feels the yoke. Already on our conquer'd castle's height The Danish watchfires redden all the night, Soon, soon, their inroads will our fate decide— Haste, let us spread th' eventful tidings wide, Arm every ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... than with me—I have often said to myself that it is unworthy of a man to allow himself to be subjected by love, unworthy to make a woman the mistress of his thoughts, of his desires; that a man should strive for higher aims, aspire ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... (A.D. 1200). The last of these is the real fashioner of Chinese philosophy, and one of the truly great men of the human race. His works are chiefly Commentaries on the Kings and the Four Books. They are committed to memory by millions of Chinese who aspire to pass the public-service examinations. The Chinese philosophy, thus established by Choo-tsze, is ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... "Now we all know what Nick is, and few fellows like to play in a game where he has any part; but remember that he is one of the high-school students, and on that account has just as much right to aspire to a place on the representative team as ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... said that every French soldier carried the baton of a marshal in his knapsack, so now may the silver star be hidden in the pocket of the lieutenants of every staff department as well as those of the Fighting Force. There are none who may not aspire. ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... Wampum-hair, so called from the gentleness of his disposition and love of peace. He was only a few years the senior of the maiden, and of an obscure family compared with that of the famous Aishkwagon-ai-bee. But love levels all distinctions, and, impelled by an influence he could not withstand, he dared to aspire to the hand of Leelinau. Besides, there was one superiority he enjoyed which made the claim less presumptuous. Young as he was no hunter of the tribe could be compared with him in skill or daring. Other lodges might be destitute, but there was ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... general belief in your own guilt, and the certainty of your fate; such charges would be regarded as a paltry subterfuge, and no one would credit them. Go, fellow—the bat cannot consort with the eagle, nor can such as you aspire to even the most distant familiarity with persons of my rank. Depart, instantly; and to-morrow you shall receive a pecuniary reward that will amply compensate you for the ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... as broad as humanity. As all the stars lie in the firmament, so all creatures rest in the heaven of His love. Mankind has many common characteristics. We all suffer, we all sin, we all hunger, we all aspire, hope, and die; and, blessed be God! we all occupy precisely the same relation to the divine love which lies in Jesus Christ. There are no step-children in God's great family, and none of them receives a more grudging ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... become natural to him since his illness began; "my love for you proved too strong to be restrained just now: but believe me, I had fully made up my mind never to open my lips to you on the subject; for what right have I, a helpless, and, I fear, hopeless, invalid, to dare to aspire—" ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... country is undone. I desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about most things below essentials, indulging myself in ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... young men who aspire to high positions, and are anxious to rise above their fellows, be sure of this, that those who have the apportioning of important and lucrative places of trust, judge in the main by Christ's rule, "He that is faithful in that which is least ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... and speaking with reference to the effect his acts and sayings may have had upon his claims for political preferment. If he should ever change his mind, however, no one has a better right than he has to aspire to anything within the gift ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... out and looked on the landscape, he thought that never before had he seen it so dreamy—never before had he seen it so beautiful and so glorious, for never before had he so felt the use of this world as a place in which to attain to the good and to shun the evil, to overcome temptation and to aspire to life. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... compromise," he returned. "We've differed widely on this question of a greater canal. You have evolved a plan best suited to Utopia; my own is aimed to meet the human nature I know best—the human nature De Witt Clinton, in whose steps you evidently aspire to tread, comprehended and took into the reckoning. Be practical as he was practical—as you were in the early days of our acquaintance. I no longer ask you to sign the bill; I respect your punctilio. I only beg that you will permit this measure which your party has espoused to ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... fame of his exploits, in order to do away with the imputation of envy, that it would appear I am in danger of being rivalled by every obscure person, but not by himself, because, as he enjoys an eminence above every body else, an eminence to which I do not dissemble that I also aspire, he is unwilling that I should be placed upon a level with him. He has represented himself as an old man, and as one who has gone through every gradation of honour, and me as below the age even of his son; as if he supposed that the desire of glory did not exceed the limits of human ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... could possibly, I believe, have shaken! What, therefore, was my secret alarm, when first I was conscious of the force of her attractions, and found my mind wholly occupied with admiration of her excellencies! All that pride could demand, and all to which ambition could aspire, all that happiness could covet, or the most scrupulous delicacy exact, in her I found united; and while my heart was enslaved by her charms, my understanding exulted in its fetters. Yet to forfeit my name, to give up for-ever a family which upon ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... me verily think that the supremest height of heroic virtue described by Hesiod consisteth in being a debtor, wherein I held the first degree in my commencement. Which dignity, though all human creatures seem to aim at and aspire thereto, few nevertheless, because of the difficulties in the way and encumbrances of hard passages, are able to reach it, as is easily perceivable by the ardent desire and vehement longing harboured in the breast of everyone to be still creating ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... the Low Countries and on other fields of European warfare, had fairly won their title to assume the name and pomp of soldiership. The entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel, and with plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can aspire to equal. ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... millions of men;—Nirwana, the end of successive existences, that state which has no relation to matter, or space, or time, to which the departing flame of the extinguished taper has gone. It is the supreme end, Nonentity. The attaining of this is the object to which we ought to aspire, and for that purpose we should seek to destroy within ourselves all cleaving to existence, weaning ourselves from every earthly object, from every earthly pursuit. We should resort to monastic life, to penance, to self-denial, self-mortification, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... he conceived would fit his needs, and an ambition. This last was nothing less than to strike it rich and set himself up among the eminently bourgeois of London. It seemed that the situation of the wealthy English middle class, with just enough gentility above to aspire to, and sufficient smaller fry to bully and patronize, appealed to his imagination, though of course he did not put it ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... tempt me—when she herself displays the matchless store of her countless fascinations for my attraction—when she honors me by special favors and makes me plainly aware that I am not too presumptuous in venturing to aspire to her hand in marriage—what can I do but accept with a good grace the fortune thrown to me by Providence? I should be the most ungrateful of men were I to refuse so precious a gift from Heaven, and I confess I feel no inclination to reject what I consider ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... woman. Only statues and the beautiful dead dream-women, vanished with the neiges d'antan. What did it matter whom I married? Perhaps you would have had me aspire higher than a grisette? To a tradesman's daughter? Or a demoiselle in society? 'Explain my position?'—a poor exile's position—to some double-chinned bourgeois papa who can only see that my immortal ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... deliver and separate the soul from the body.... Therefore it would be foolish if a man, who all his life has taken measures to be as near death as possible, should, when it comes, rebel against it.... In truth the real seekers after wisdom aspire to die, and of all men they are those who least fear death." Moreover Socrates bases all higher morality on liberation from the body. He who only follows what his body ordains is not moral. Who is valiant? asks Socrates. He is valiant who does not obey his body but the demands of his spirit ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... the son of a peasant," replied Pierre, bowing, and casting his eyes to the ground, "and you may think it presumption, indeed, for me to aspire to the hand of your noble daughter. But a peasant's love is as pure as the love of a prince; and a peasant's heart may ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... with inspiring vehemence, "and is not the utterly unworthy person before you indebted to you in a double measure that life is still within him? Is not the strength which now promotes him to such exceptional audacity as to aspire to your lovely hand, of your own creating? Only encourage Ling to entertain a well-founded hope that on his return he shall not find you partaking of the wedding feast of some wealthy and exceptionally round-bodied Mandarin, and this person will accomplish the journey to ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... the great John L., we suppose that "Handsome Jim" Corbett is the only old time champion who can at all aspire to Sullivan's place in ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... her appraisingly. "It's the kind most women aspire to," he answered enigmatically. He imparted to this obscure remark the air of passing a ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... before they feel the misery of civil strife, and inspire a returning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... wealthy that few of them could pretend to aspire to her, so she selected for her chattel a young man called Willy Liston; a youth of an unhappy turn—he contributed nothing to hilarity, his face was a kill-joy—nobody liked him; for this female reason Christie ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... it, there was hung A stocking by the fire To wear which no one over-young Could fittingly aspire: Long, slender, graceful—it was just The thing to fill the heart Of Mrs. C. with deep distrust; ...
— In The Yule-Log Glow, Vol. IV (of IV) • Harrison S. Morris
... to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke, this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile! How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics! In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office than one would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius were diverted from office-getting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... vanities; and they who prize and commend beauty, or fashion, or dress, or frivolous accomplishments, may be guilty of this folly; but not the parent or the person who commends in a child those things which are really commendable, and after which it is his greatest glory to aspire. ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... bulk of nominal Christians are defective. This they freely declare (secretly feeling perhaps some complacency from the frankness of the avowal) to be a higher strain of piety than that to which they aspire. Their forgetfulness also of some of the leading dispositions of Christianity, is undeniably apparent in their allowed want of the spirit of kindness, and meekness, and gentleness, and patience, and long suffering; and above all, of that ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... question of sleeping-quarters. As usual, the mind of the male was made up, and he planted himself in the darkest corner of the upper perch away from the window, shook himself out, and considered the matter decided. The meek little new-comer did not aspire to his corner, but she ardently desired a place on that farther perch, and after he became quiet she resolved to try for it. Too modest to approach it in the natural way, from the lower perches, she scrambled up the wires of the cage, and shyly came on from the back. The ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... have words. They ain't always bestowed together. When they are, why, then, I reckon, them are the book-writers. Sonny he's got purty consider'ble o' both for his age, but, of co'se, he wouldn't never aspire to put nothin' he could think up into no printed book, I don't reckon; though he's got three blank books filled with the routine of "out-door housekeeping," ez he calls it, the way it's kep' by varmints an' ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... wrong not to seek to be free." Says the sage Politician, "Your natural share Of talents would raise you much higher, Than thus to crawl on in your present low sphere, And it 's wrong in you not to aspire." ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... midnight parties, at gay suppers, at garish dances, where Gorgio ladies answered the amorous looks of the ambitious Romany with the fiddle at his chin. Because these young Romanys knew they dare not aspire, they were resentful; but Jethro, the head of the rival family and the son of the dead claimant to the headship, had not such compulsory modesty. He had ranged far and wide, and his expectations were extensive. He was nowhere to be seen in the groups which sang and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wits in the present day?" to which I assenting, he adds "I had always thought that Rogers had been reckon'd the Prince of Wits, but I suppose that now Mr. Hood has the better title to that appellation." To which I replied that Mr. R. had wit with much better qualities, but did not aspire to the principality. He had taken all the puns manufactured in John Bull for our friend, in sad and stupid earnest. One ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... wooers heere? poore sillie men, Highly deceiv'd to gape for marriage heere Onely for gaine: I have another reache More high then their base spirits can aspire: Yet must I use this Doctors secret aide, That hath alreadie promist me a drug Whose vertue shall ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... mark of any master; and for the student who does not aspire so high as to be numbered with the giants, it is still the one quality in which he may improve himself at will. Passion, wisdom, creative force, the power of mystery or colour, are allotted in the hour of birth, and can be neither learned nor simulated. But the just ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in perfect and continuall health: as also if the worst happen, death may at all times, and whensoever it shall please us, cut off all other inconveniences and crosses. But as for death, it is inevitable.] did ever attaine unto an absolute enjoying of it? The perfectest have beene content but to aspire and approach her, without ever possessing her. But they are deceived; seeing that of all the pleasures we know, the pursute of them is pleasant. The enterprise is perceived by the qualitie of the thing, which it hath regard unto: for it is a good portion of the effect, and consubstantiall. ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... scene, plot, motives, and characters, the copyright works of Edward S. Ellis have been deservedly popular with the youth of America. In a community where every native-born boy can aspire to the highest offices, such a book as Ellis' "From the Throttle to the President's Chair," detailing the progress of the sturdy son of the people from locomotive engineer to the presidency of a great railroad, must always be popular. The youth of the land which boasts of a Vanderbilt will ever ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... rights as soul to body,—the right of a man to himself. Both are condemned; but their relative condemnation must be measured by their relative characters. As Freedom is more than property, as Man is above the dollar that he owns, as heaven, to which we all aspire, is higher than earth, where every accumulation of wealth must ever remain, so are the rights assailed by an American Congress higher than those once assailed by the British Parliament. And just in this degree must history condemn the Slave Act more ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... he yielded to the allure of Valencia Van Tyle, admitting a finish of beauty to which mere youth could not aspire, all that was idealistic in him went out to the younger cousin whose admiration and shy swift friendship he was losing. His vanity refused to accept this at first. She was a little piqued at him because of the growing intimacy with Valencia. That was ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... noticed the change, and innocently encouraged him to aspire. We must not blame her if she did. This is what woman's education makes of her. The most cultured women must be grateful and flattering toward the rudest men, if circumstances throw them together. Born to depend on somebody, they must depend on their inferiors when their ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... Esteban, growing daily more bent and feeble, smiled delightedly before his last work; he was going to be the glory of his house! His name was Luna, and therefore he could aspire to anything without fear, because even Popes had ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... children are bent and their bones broken by jugglers when they train them. Bertrand himself felt an adoration for her surpassing ordinary human passion. When he reached the summit of a happiness to which in his wildest dreams he had never dared to aspire, the young count nearly lost his reason. In vain had his father, Charles of Artois (who was Count of Aire, a direct descendant of Philip the Bold, and one of the regents of the kingdom), attempted by severe ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... not the humble heart aspire To the gross home of wealth and pride; Nor be it to a hearth allied That vaunts of many a ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... a minority, the power of the government should be divided among different competitors for the regency, the parliaments and people will find it still more easy to acquire and ascertain the liberty at which they aspire, because they will have the balance of power in their hands, and be able to make either scale preponderate. I could say a great deal more upon this subject; and I have some remarks to make relating ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Leonards. This indeed merits a closer study than can be given here, for it is the life led by vast numbers of prosperous New Yorkers who love both the excitement of the city and the repose of the country, and who aspire to unite the enjoyment of both in their daily existence. The suburbs of the metropolis stretch landward fifty miles in every direction; and everywhere are handsome villas like Leonard's, inhabited by ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... uncultivated whom Dickens moved, and the cultivated he failed to move; between the power that so worked in delft as to stir the universal heart, and the commonness that could not meddle with porcelain or aspire to any noble clay; the pitiful see-saw is continued up to the final sentence, where, in the impartial critic's eagerness to discredit even the value of the emotion awakened in such men as Jeffrey by such creations as Little Nell, he reverses all he has been saying about the cultivated ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... those proper to five-and-twenty years of age; besides, the spirit of the times did not tend to melancholy, that is a modern sentiment, springing from the overthrow of fortunes and the weakness of man. In the eighteenth century it was rare to dream of abstract things, or aspire to the unknown: men went straight to pleasure, glory, or fortune, and all who were handsome, brave or intriguing could attain them. That was the time when people were not ashamed to be happy. Now mind governs matter so much that men dare not ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... enterprises—hitches in the negotiations of loans, delays, perhaps accidental, but annoying; changes of policy in certain firms who no longer cared to consider acreage as investment; and a curiously veiled antagonism to him in a certain railroad, the reorganisation of which he had dared once to aspire to. ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... present. But what presents have you to make? And if you had any that were worthy of the least attention of so great a monarch, what proportion could they bear to the favor you would ask? Therefore, reflect well on what you are about, and consider, that you aspire to an object which it is impossible for ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... his son with a sneer on his face, which was called forth by the thought that any one, least of all his bitter personal enemy, should aspire to hold any relations with this paragon ...
— Little Bobtail - or The Wreck of the Penobscot. • Oliver Optic
... part, at their election, aged men. Power was, therefore, incessantly passing into new hands. Every election was a revolution in prospects and expectations. In a community where all might rise, where all might aspire to all, it necessarily followed that every man was occupied in thrusting some other into the background. Though the population of the city at the inception of the Reformation had sunk to eighty thousand, there ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... dear-bought experiment of being loved in spite of her faults—a glory proud women ever aspire to—was, at present, the ambition of Miss Milner. She, who, as Dorriforth's ward had ever been gentle, and always obedient, became as a mistress, sometimes haughty, always insolent. He was surprised, but the novelty ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... read. Good simple man, he will never get through a page of that abstruse work; and my hostess will understand nothing. Is it not strange—these people were peasants a generation ago; they are peasants now by their goodness, hospitality, religion, superstition, and yet they aspire to be eclectic philosophers? Varvara Ilinitchna has life itself to read, and she turns away to look at books. Life does not satisfy her—there are great empty places in it, and she would be bored often but that she has books to open in these ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... my heart's bird! Slight and small the lovely cry Came trickling down, but no one heard. Parrot and cuckoo, crow, magpie Jarred horrid notes and the jangling jay Ripped the fine threads of song away, For why should peeping chick aspire To ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves
... Be more than thou canst understand, Revering him whose power of bliss, Angelic, dares to seize her hand, Or whose seraphic love makes flight To the apprehension of her lips; And think, the sun of such delight From thine own darkness takes eclipse. And, wouldst thou to the same aspire, This is the art thou must employ, Live greatly; so shalt thou acquire ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... their minds to send Philip to King's School at Tercanbury. The neighbouring clergy sent their sons there. It was united by long tradition to the Cathedral: its headmaster was an honorary Canon, and a past headmaster was the Archdeacon. Boys were encouraged there to aspire to Holy Orders, and the education was such as might prepare an honest lad to spend his life in God's service. A preparatory school was attached to it, and to this it was arranged that Philip should go. Mr. Carey took him into Tercanbury one Thursday afternoon towards the end of September. All day ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham
... encouragers of heresy; so that not one of them can ever be king of France, where there have been such religious princes in time past, who have justly merited the name of Most Christian; and so there is no possibility of permitting him or any of his house to aspire to the throne, or to have the subject even treated of in the estates. It should on the contrary be entirely excluded as prejudicial to the realm and unworthy to be even mentioned among persons so Catholic as those about to meet ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... spring. But if Thy quick'ning beams awhile decline, And with their light bless not this orb of mine, A chilly frost surpriseth every member, And in the midst of June I feel December. O how this earthly temper doth debase The noble soul, in this her humble place! Whose wingy nature ever doth aspire To reach that place whence first it took its fire. These flames I feel, which in my heart do dwell, Are not Thy beams, but take their fire from hell. O quench them all, and let Thy light divine, Be as the sun to this poor orb of mine: And to Thy sacred spirit convert those fires, Whose ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... of Oberlin, will receive her? I have myself lately made such a demand and been refused simply on the ground of sex. Yet what is there in the highest range of intellectual pursuits, to which woman may not rightfully aspire? What is there, for instance, in theology, which she should not strive to learn? Give me only that in religion which woman may and should become acquainted with, and the rest may go like chaff before ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... take here my hand, Which is as much as if I swore by heaven, And call'd the gods to witness of my vow. Thus shall my heart be still combin'd with thine Until our bodies turn to elements, And both our souls aspire celestial thrones.— Techelles and ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part I. • Christopher Marlowe
... try to answer it, may I deal with a sentence or two which (pardon me) seemed less relevant than the rest? . . . If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand. True enough, my lord: but neither can it aspire." ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... a magnificent and complete collection of every decoration that the rulers of four great empires had to bestow upon a man for heroism, contempt of death, and high merit. There was no honor left for the Victor of —— still to aspire to. And only eleven short months of war had cast all that at his feet. It was the harvest of but a single year of war. Thirty-nine years of his life had previously gone in the service in tedious monotony, in an eternal struggle with sordid everyday cares. He had worn himself out ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... maintained their independence in the sixteenth century against the most formidable regular army in Europe, and also did their fair share of fighting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they have long ceased to aspire to the rank of a military Power. The separation from Belgium in 1830-31 put an end to the Orange policy of creating a powerful Netherland State from Lorraine to the North Sea which could hold its own with either France or Prussia, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... a small place," said Mr. Montgomery, modestly, "but my tastes are plain and unobtrusive, and I do not aspire to a more conspicuous post. However, that is not to the purpose. A lady parishioner, desiring to donate a portion of her wealth to the poor, has placed in my hand a diamond ring, the proceeds to be devoted to charitable objects. I desire ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... the health of our distinguished, able, and high-minded representative, whose Congressional career proves that there is no office in the gift of a free and happy people to which he may not legitimately aspire. I have the honor and pleasure to propose, with three times three, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... rover of common birth, was so confident of his valour, that he was moved to aspire to a splendid marriage. He was a suitor for Sigrid, the daughter of Yngwin, King of the Goths, and moreover demanded half the Gothic kingdom for her dowry. Halfdan was consulted whether the match should ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... morning, Bettina brought me a band for my neck, and gave me the following letter: "Spurn me, but respect my honour and the shadow of peace to which I aspire. No one from this house must confess to Father Mancia; you alone can prevent the execution of that project, and I need not suggest the way to succeed. It will prove whether you have ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the latter can only be achieved through arduous and persevering endeavour. Without a genuinely divine element—without the Spirit breathed into man by his Creator—we could not even realise our failure, nor aspire after a fuller portion of that same life-giving Spirit; it is what we have that tells us of what we lack, and directs us to Him who alone can supply our want out ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... about to enter, suffer from the Gaum, or razzia, of the neighbouring Anezah and the Juhaynah;—the two tribes, however, not mixing. The bandits, numbering, they say, from fifty to sixty, mounted on horses and dromedaries, only aspire to plunder some poor devil-shepherd of a few camels, goats, and muttons. They never attack in rear; they always sleep at night, save when every moment is precious for "loot"-driving; and their weapons, which may be deadly in the narrows, are ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... deadly thrust. Behold, I am prone to boast of having the widest reputation, as a local editor, of any man on the Pacific coast, and you gravely come forward and tell me "if I work hard and attend closely to my business, I may aspire to a place on a big San Francisco daily, some day." There's a comment on human vanity for you! Why, blast it, I was under the impression that I could get such a situation as that any time I asked for it. But I don't want it. No paper in the United States ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... any subject, think how Homer would have described it, how Plato would have imagined it, and how Demosthenes would have expressed it; and when you have so done, you will then, no doubt, have a standard which will raise you up to the dignity of anything that human genius can aspire to." Mr. Hastings was calling upon himself, and raising his mind to the dignity of what tyranny could do, what unrighteous exaction could perform. He considered, he says, how much Sujah Dowlah would have exacted, and that he thinks would not be too much for him to exact. He boldly avows,—"I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... us more honor than simple gentlemen could ever aspire to, therefore gratitude is on our side. But we must not lose time. We have ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... majesty. He had lived a full life, and few have so completely realized the medieval ideal of specializing in omniscience. He left warm friends behind him; and Lady Masham has said of him that beyond which no man may dare to aspire.[2] ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... merely utilitarian point of view there are some advantages in the fact that certain trades are practically confined to the members of certain castes. A dhobi, for instance, does not expect or aspire to be anything different. Hence he begins to learn his craft almost from infancy. Again, as I write, I can see in the stream below a busy family of three generations of dhobis. The grandfather is grey-haired, and though taking a good share of the work is obviously getting ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... about an Inch Long, and put it into a good Vial full of Spring water, so as the upper part of the Mint was above the neck of the Glass, and the lower part Immers'd in the Water; within a few Dayes this Mint began to shoot forth Roots into the Water, and to display its Leaves, and aspire upwards; and in a short time it had numerous Roots and Leaves, and these very strong and fragrant of the Odour of the Mint: but the Heat of my Chamber, as I suppose, kill'd the Plant when it was grown to have a pretty thick Stalk, which with the various ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... may be added to the preceding pair: Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... painting than we get from Norman writers, who were no more capable of writing justly of Godwin and Harold, than Roman authors of Hannibal and Spartacus. Godwin was an abler man than his son and successor, and probably the latter would never have been able to aspire to royalty, and for a few months to wear a crown, had not the fortunes of his house been raised so high by his father. Nevertheless, Harold was worthy of his inheritance, and possessed rare qualities, such as made him not undeserving a throne, and of better fortune than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... there are millions that do—he is not a vicar of the divine, he is himself divine, a god in a tenement of flesh who, as such, though he die, immediately is reincarnated; a god therefore always present among his people, whose history is a continuous gospel. In contemporaneous Italy, a peasant may aspire to the papacy. In the uplands of Asia, men have loftier ambitions. There they may become Buddha, who perhaps never was, except ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... some name of literary celebrity, and the question when, and by whom, these tales were written filled up the pause of conversation in a hundred circles and coteries. This I may never enjoy during my lifetime; but farther than this, I am certain, my vanity should never induce me to aspire. ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... I do not aspire to the presumptuous hope that any one may say "Well, I see this man Cobb is doing for Miss Ashford's second book what Barrie did for her first one." I have no such ambition. A minnow always errs when he undertakes to swim in the company of a whale. If he tries to swim alongside ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... of a peasant," replied Pierre, bowing, and casting his eyes to the ground, "and you may think it presumption, indeed, for me to aspire to the hand of your noble daughter. But a peasant's love is as pure as the love of a prince; and a peasant's heart may beat ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... heard How bravely sang the bird, And all things in God's bounty did rejoice, She who, her Mother by, spake seldom word, Did her charm'd silence doff, And, to my happy marvel, her dear voice Went as a clock does, when the pendulum's off. Ill Monarch of man's heart the Maiden who Does not aspire to be High-Pontiff too! So she repeated soft her Poet's line, 'By grace divine, Not otherwise, O Nature, are we thine!' And I, up the bright steep she led me, trod, And the like thought pursued With, 'What is gladness without gratitude, And where is gratitude without ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... think of him only with disgust and loathing. Would you believe it, senor, that this fellow, now that epaulettes have been set on his shoulders—placed there for some vile service—has the audacity to aspire to the hand of my sister? Adela Miranda standing in bridal robes by the side of Gil Uraga! I would rather see ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... himself the richest landowner in that locality; he was the chosen friend of the King; had he not a right to aspire ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... of her way to tempt me—when she herself displays the matchless store of her countless fascinations for my attraction—when she honors me by special favors and makes me plainly aware that I am not too presumptuous in venturing to aspire to her hand in marriage—what can I do but accept with a good grace the fortune thrown to me by Providence? I should be the most ungrateful of men were I to refuse so precious a gift from Heaven, and I confess I feel no inclination to reject ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... overshadowing empires—British India and Russia in Asia—she has still a part to play in history. And I may again note that Al-Islam is based upon the fundamental idea of a Republic which is, all (free) men are equal, and the lowest may aspire to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... recall some pleasant country memories to the overworked slaves of our great cities, and that he may deserve those thanks which are all the more grateful that they are rather divined by the receiver than directly expressed by the giver. The reviewer cannot aspire to all the merit of this confidential privacy and pleasing shyness of gratitude, but he may fairly lay claim to a part of it, inasmuch as, though obliged to speak his thanks publicly, he need not do it to the author's face. ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... operation in India. If my existence, either officially or corporeally, were prolonged twenty times longer than either of them is likely to be, a Parliamentary system in India is not at all the goal to which I would for one moment aspire. ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? But he may perhaps aspire to know at least the parts to which he bears some proportion. But the parts of the world are all so related and linked to one another, that I believe it impossible to know one without the other ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... that, and because they tell me the price of these books is fixed and known to all. MR. STOUPE has undertaken the charge of the money for you in cash, and also to see about the most convenient mode of carriage. That you may have all you wish, and all you aspire after, is my sincere ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... remote and disdainful in manner and decidedly handsome as well as poetic and better positioned than I, as I fancied, was certain to achieve this gilded and crystal state, whereas I, not being handsome nor an artist nor sufficiently poetic perhaps, could scarcely aspire to so gorgeous a goal. Often, as around dinnertime he ambled from the office arrayed in the latest mode—dark blue suit, patent leather boots, a dark, round soft felt hat, loose tie blowing idly about his neck, a thin cane in his hand—I was already almost convinced that the anticipated ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... the king himself in his bounty to others. While he was recounting these undoubted facts, the people with great unanimity elected him king. The same spirit of ambition which had prompted Tarquin, in other respects an excellent man, to aspire to the crown, attended him also on the throne. And being no less mindful of strengthening his own power, than of increasing the commonwealth, he elected a hundred new members into the senate, who from that time were called minorum ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... let me take you out," laughed Billy. "You proud little thing! Maybe you've forgotten how you turned poor Uncle William and me out into the cold, cold world that morning, just because we dared to aspire to your Lowestoft teapot; but ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... chance; until, if we be acting in concert with a whole civilised nation, there are surely a majority of chances that we must be acting right. And again, how true it is that we can never behave as we wish in this tormented sphere, and can only aspire to different and more favourable circumstances, in order to stand out and be ourselves wholly and rightly! And yet once more, if in the hurry and pressure of affairs and passions you tend to nod and become drowsy, here are twenty-four hours of Sunday ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... adopted daughter of one of the wealthiest ladies in the Crescent City, accomplished, rich, polished, and refined, this Blanche he dared not, could not hope to win. It was a height to which he, a poor salaried clerk, could never aspire. ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... not, my worthy hosts, attempt to describe the inexpressible distress which seized my soul at seeing myself thus deserted. There are some philosophers who aspire to triumph over human feelings, and consider all tender affections as disgraceful weaknesses; for my part, I have never pretended to that degree in insensibility. I have, indeed, opposed as criminal that habitual acquiescence in sorrow which renders us unfit for the discharge of our duties; ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... of all ideas, the fountain of all the order and proportion and beauty of the universe, the source of all the good which exists in nature and in man. To practise goodness—to conform the character to the eternal models of order, proportion, and excellence, is to resemble God. To aspire after perfection of moral being, to secure assimilation to God ([Greek: omoiosis Theo]) is the noble aspiration ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... says, for he is above that, but to "keep himself in practice," he being a Canadian by birth; and when I ask him what he considers the best thing he can do in this world, he says, beside this, to keep up and add to his English. This is about as much as the college-bred generally do or aspire to do, and they take an English paper for the purpose. One who has just come from reading perhaps one of the best English books will find how many with whom he can converse about it? Or suppose he comes from reading a Greek or Latin classic ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... vain!— That, under God, the Nation's later birth Of Freedom, and the people's gain Of their own Sovereignty, shall never wane And perish from the circle of the earth!" From such a perfect text, shall Song aspire To light her faded fire, And into wandering music turn Its virtue, simple, sorrowful, and stern? His voice all elegies anticipated; For, whatsoe'er the strain, We hear that one refrain: "We consecrate ourselves to ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... Face to face, silent, drawing nigh and nigher, Until the lengthening wings break into fire At either curved point,—what bitter wrong Can the earth do to us, that we should not long Be here contented? Think. In mounting higher, The angels would press on us and aspire To drop some golden orb of perfect song Into our deep, dear silence. Let us stay Rather on earth, Beloved,—where the unfit Contrarious moods of men recoil away And isolate pure spirits, and permit A place to stand and love in for a day, With darkness ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... consequently little risk in Hilda's purpose to pass the summer days in the galleries of Roman palaces, and her nights in that aerial chamber, whither the heavy breath of the city and its suburbs could not aspire. It would probably harm her no more than it did the white doves, who sought the same high atmosphere at sunset, and, when morning came, flew down into the narrow streets, about their daily business, as Hilda ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume II. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... in value after youth is past. Kedgers knew that a Mr. Timson, with a regiment of under gardeners, and daily increasing knowledge of his profession, could continue to direct, though years rolled by. But to such fortune he had not dared to aspire. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... neighbours, we need not judge them. And indeed, such matters depend much on men's complexions [Note 1], and some find it a deal easier to control them than other. And after all, Edith, there is a sense wherein no man can ever be fully satisfied in this life. We were meant to aspire; and if we were entirely content with present things, then should we grovel. To submit cheerfully is one thing: to be fully gratified, so that no desire is left, is an other. We shall not be that, methinks, ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... ATTENTION.—No woman is entitled to any more attention than her loveliness and ladylike conduct will command. Those who are most pleasing will receive the most attention, and those who desire more should aspire to acquire more by cultivating those graces and virtues which ennoble woman, but no lady should lower or distort her own true ideal, or smother and crucify her conscience, in order to please any living man. A good man will admire a good ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... at a distance, Ayesha, but to come too near to it I do not aspire. If I did perhaps I ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... broad as humanity. As all the stars lie in the firmament, so all creatures rest in the heaven of His love. Mankind has many common characteristics. We all suffer, we all sin, we all hunger, we all aspire, hope, and die; and, blessed be God! we all occupy precisely the same relation to the divine love which lies in Jesus Christ. There are no step-children in God's great family, and none of them receives a more grudging ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... do not think of, which is that nobody ever goes to ask a favour of the sultan without a present. But what presents have you to make? and what proportion could they bear to the favour you would ask? Therefore, reflect well, and consider that you aspire to an object which it is impossible for you ...
— The Arabian Nights - Their Best-known Tales • Unknown
... source of warmth, and so, in a sense, of life. It is full of quick energy, it transmutes all kinds of dead matter into its own ruddy likeness, sending up the fat of the sacrifices in wreathes of smoke that aspire heavenward; and changing all the gross, heavy, earthly dullness into flame, more akin to the heaven into which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... dans ce tableau, De mon trepas tu vois la cause; Au moins ne pense pas du neant du caveau, Que j'aspire a l'apotheose. Tout ce que l'amitie par ces vers propose, C'est que tant qu'ici-bas le celeste flambeau; Eclairera tes jours tandis que je repose, Et lorsque le printemps paraissant de nouveau. De son sein abondant t'offre les fleurs ecloses, Chaque fois d'un bouquet ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Ling, with inspiring vehemence, "and is not the utterly unworthy person before you indebted to you in a double measure that life is still within him? Is not the strength which now promotes him to such exceptional audacity as to aspire to your lovely hand, of your own creating? Only encourage Ling to entertain a well-founded hope that on his return he shall not find you partaking of the wedding feast of some wealthy and exceptionally round-bodied Mandarin, and this person will accomplish ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... time an act of charity and a caress—do you understand? It is as though a soldo and a flower fell from your hand together. Reflect that you lack nothing, and that they lack everything, that while you aspire to be happy, they are content simply with not dying. Reflect, that it is a horror, in the midst of so many palaces, along the streets thronged with carriages, and children clad in velvet, that there ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... am I lame, am I blind? Am I repulsively ugly? Am I a pauper, that I should care for your money? Have I not loved you—yes, loved you long and faithfully? Am I too old? Is there anything in the nature of things why I should not aspire to be your husband?" ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... offers of assistance were made to the general, on the supposition that he might aspire to the supreme power; one from the republicans, which I have mentioned, another from Bordeaux, the French ambassador, in the name of Cardinal Mazarin. On one of these offers he was questioned by Sir Anthony Ashley Copper in the council of state. If we may believe Clarges, one of his secret ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... I concluded that God would not inspire desires which could not be realised, and that I may aspire to sanctity in spite of my littleness. For me to become great is impossible. I must bear with myself and my many imperfections; but I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way—very short and very straight, a little way that is wholly ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... in the Covent Garden Journal for June 2, 1752 (Works, x. 80), says of the difficulty of admission at the hospitals:—'The properest objects (those I mean who are most wretched and friendless) may as well aspire at a place at Court as at a ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... the Vendome, to-day our support. The princes, my sons, give promise of virtues as excellent, and will be worthy to aspire to destinies as noble. It is my desire and my duty to give no thought to my private griefs begotten of an ill-assorted marriage. May the King ever be adored by his people; may my children ever be beloved and cherished by the King; I am happy, and I ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... almost an hour she sat looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly conscious of the wasted time. Much might have gone into that hour. There was tea for her at one of the college houses—the hostess had a "day," and went so far as to aspire to the exclusive serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy biscuit every Friday—if she wanted to drop in. This hostess invited favored students to meet the faculty and townspeople on these occasions, and the two latter classes were ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... inspirations, and can alone speak to the senses of its intellectual revelations. Although spirits may feed upon it as we do upon air, yet it may not nourish all mortal men; and those privileged few alone, who have drawn from its heavenly source, may aspire to hold spiritual converse with it. How few are these! for, like the thousands who marry for love, and who profess love, whilst love will single out but one amongst them, so also will thousands court ...
— Sketch of Handel and Beethoven • Thomas Hanly Ball
... much though I aspire You, and you alone, to please, I refrain from this desire, For 'twould set my heart on fire If I made my lady wheeze; I should well-nigh perish if Aught from me should ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 13, 1914 • Various
... Work is Dedicated By a Humble Native of Flatland In the Hope that Even as he was Initiated into the Mysteries Of THREE Dimensions Having been previously conversant With ONLY TWO So the Citizens of that Celestial Region May aspire yet higher and higher To the Secrets of FOUR FIVE OR EVEN SIX Dimensions Thereby contributing To the Enlargement of THE IMAGINATION And the possible Development Of that most rare and excellent Gift of MODESTY Among the Superior Races Of ...
— Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (Illustrated) • Edwin A. Abbott
... them our lives shall brighter grow, Through them we shall aspire To better, nobler aims in life, Leading ...
— Silver Links • Various
... this lady arose from his father's acquaintance, already mentioned, with Lady Anne Wharton, who was co-heiress of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley in Oxfordshire. Poetry had lately been taught by Addison to aspire to the arms of nobility, though not with extraordinary happiness. We may naturally conclude that Young now gave himself up in some measure to the comforts of his new connection, and to the expectations of that preferment which he thought due to his poetical talents, or, at ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... that struggle and aspire, All hearts of prayer by thee are lit; And, dim or clear, thy tongues of fire On dusky tribes and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... them, not so much deploring the necessity arising therefrom in the future as hailing them as welcome pretexts for their immediate personal aims. Neither Tyope nor the Naua had such high ambition as to aspire to a change of the basis of social organization. Neither of them had any conception of government but what was purely tribal, but they both aspired to offices and dignities such as tribal organization alone knows. These seemed unattainable for them as long as there ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... part in the Republic than can be played by men of closed minds or of unthinking habits or by organized ignorance. We aspire again to a share in the constructive work of the government in these stirring days of great tasks at home ...
— The South and the National Government • William Howard Taft
... of systems, codes, and rules. It is my habit to follow at all hazards what I take for inspiration, and to change the mould as often as I change the composition. Dogmatism in the arts is what I avoid above all things. God forbid that I should aspire to be of the number of those, either romantics or classics, who make works according to their system; who condemn themselves never to have more than one form in mind, to always be proving something, to follow any other ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... persons shall be kept aloof, and they, and such as they, be left to battle out their selfish views unchecked. And thus this lowest of all scrambling fights goes on, and they who in other countries would, from their intelligence and station, most aspire to make the laws, do here recoil the farthest from ...
— Contributions to All The Year Round • Charles Dickens
... a darkling race; save for that doubt, I stood at first where all aspire at last To stand: the secret of the world was mine. I knew, I felt (perception unexpressed, Uncomprehended by our narrow thought, But somehow felt and known in every shift And change in the spirit,—nay, in every pore Of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... ideal system. So Mr. Fisher, wisely as I think, has left the religious question on one side, and has proposed a series of reforms which will fit equally well the one-sided system which still oppresses Nonconformists and the simply equitable plan to which I, as a lover of religious freedom, aspire. ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... enterprises; to stimulate industry; to elevate and guide the public mind? You seat eight or nine men on red cushions or gilded chairs, with nothing to do but pocket their salaries, and call that a government. To such a pageant I have no desire to belong. Those who aspire to govern others should neither be afraid of the saddle by day nor of the lamp by night. In advance of the general intelligence, they should lead the way to improvement and prosperity. I would rather assume ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... into the pages of far more pretending works than this of mine, in some form or other, with more or less of fidelity to the truth, and real events, and real motives; while the humbler matters it will be my office to record, will be entirely overlooked by writers who aspire to enrol their names among the Tacituses of former ages. It may be well to say here, however, I shall not attempt the historical mood at all, but content myself with giving the feelings, incidents, and interests of what is purely ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... multiplication commences with a mechanical rupture, and with the passage of time and the influence of outside elements, the sects thus born undergo visible modifications. By turns sublime or outrageous, simple or depraved, they either aspire heavenwards or debase the human spirit to the ...
— Modern Saints and Seers • Jean Finot
... of the materials which are presented to the mind for arrangement and definition, necessarily impart no inconsiderable difficulties in the choice of the form under p 9 which such a work must be presented, if it would aspire to the honor of being regarded as a literary composition. Descriptions of nature ought not to be deficient in a tone of life-like truthfulness, while the mere enumeration of a series of general results is productive of a no less wearying impression than the elaborate accumulation ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... heart' with which the reason makes a treaty. On the other hand it is negative rather than positive; it is indignant at wrong or falsehood, but does not, like Love in the Symposium and Phaedrus, aspire to the vision of Truth or Good. It is the peremptory military spirit which prevails in the government of honour. It differs from anger (Greek), this latter term having no accessory notion of righteous indignation. Although Aristotle has retained the ...
— The Republic • Plato
... create this ardour in him? He will permit me during his passionate excitement to retain the power of reflection for us both. When he could himself reflect, I heard him say—"it is a worthless love which does not scruple to expose its object to scorn."—True; and I aspire to as pure and noble a love as he himself. Now, when honour calls him, when a great monarch solicits his services, shall I consent that he shall give himself up to love-sick dreams with me? that the illustrious warrior shall degenerate into a toying ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
... doing, ally themselves with those men who are fairminded and considerate of the man far down, and seek to embrace their many opportunities for economic progress, a foundation for political recognition, upon which the race must learn to build. Every race in the universe must aspire to becoming a factor in politics; but history shows that there is no short route to such success. Like other despised races beset with the prejudice and militant opposition of self-styled superiors, the Negroes must increase their industrial efficiency, improve their opportunities to make a ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... the amateur trapper, the log shanty is not likely to become a necessity, we will nevertheless describe its mode of construction, in order to satisfy our more earnest and adventurous readers, who aspire to a full taste ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... in the eyes of friends and neighbors. The laborer, well paid, will naturally be adequately fed, and both able and willing to perform thrice the work per day he now does or can; seeing the more efficient often step above them to posts better paid and more respected, the dullest workers will aspire to greater knowledge and skill in order that they too may attain more eligible positions. "It is the first step that costs"—the others follow almost of course. If the Aristocracy of Ireland would unitedly resolve that every ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... forming of strong mental images important and useful, but when we come to consider the phenomena of the astral plane we begin to see what an important part is played there by strong mental images or visualized ideas. The better you know what you desire, wish or aspire to, the stronger will be your thought vibrations of that thing, of course. Well, then, the stronger that you are able to picture the thing in your mind—to visualize it to yourself—the stronger will be your actual knowledge and thought-form ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... so wealthy that few of them could pretend to aspire to her, so she selected for her chattel a young man called Willy Liston; a youth of an unhappy turn—he contributed nothing to hilarity, his face was a kill-joy—nobody liked him; for this female reason Christie ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... jugglers when they train them. Bertrand himself felt an adoration for her surpassing ordinary human passion. When he reached the summit of a happiness to which in his wildest dreams he had never dared to aspire, the young count nearly lost his reason. In vain had his father, Charles of Artois (who was Count of Aire, a direct descendant of Philip the Bold, and one of the regents of the kingdom), attempted by severe admonitions to stop him while yet on the ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... then, even then, his feelings ceased not all: In that last moment could a word recall Remorse for the black deed as yet half done, And what he hid from many showed to one: When Bligh in stern reproach demanded where Was now his grateful sense of former care? 160 Where all his hopes to see his name aspire, And blazon Britain's thousand glories higher? His feverish lips thus broke their gloomy spell, "Tis that! 'tis that! I am in hell! in hell!"[362] No more he said; but urging to the bark His Chief, commits him to his fragile ark; These ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... be concerned with; what has he to do with the object? That is the merely traveller's affair. Now, your English tourists have always a residue of scruple about them which balks their genius. Not satisfied with pleasing, they aspire to be believed; are almost angry if their anecdote is not credited; content themselves with adding graces, giving a turn, trimming and decorating—cannot build a structure boldly from the bare earth. This necessity of finding a certain straw for their bricks, which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... far the most important committee over which Sir Matthew had ever presided, and he cherished the hope that by means of it he might secure the immediate desire of his heart, a Privy Councillorship; once a "Right Honourable" he could aspire to anything—a seat in the Cabinet, or, if Blum & Co. prospered, a peerage even. Sir Matthew's heart leaped at the thought ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... from the body.... Therefore it would be foolish if a man, who all his life has taken measures to be as near death as possible, should, when it comes, rebel against it.... In truth the real seekers after wisdom aspire to die, and of all men they are those who least fear death." Moreover Socrates bases all higher morality on liberation from the body. He who only follows what his body ordains is not moral. Who is valiant? asks Socrates. He is valiant who does not obey his body but the demands of his spirit when ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... discovered since Lamarck's day, that if he were living now, he would probably state his case very differently; I shall therefore content myself with a few brief remarks, which will hardly, however, aspire to ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... Yoletta, thy younger daughter"; and the old gentleman answered: "Abide with me, for I would rather you should have her than some other person." Now I wonder whether the matter will be complicated with Leah—that is, Edra? Leah was considerably older than Rachel, and, like Edra, tender-eyed. I do not aspire or desire to marry both, especially if I should, like Jacob, have to begin with the wrong one, however tender-eyed: but for divine Yoletta I could serve seven years; yea, and fourteen, if ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... with those who reject all creeds, equally with those whose creeds are the longest and the oldest. In our day, it must have been generally noticed, that the wonders of what imagines itself to be Spiritualism are rather more accredited by persons who aspire to the character of rationalists than by those who hold on tenaciously to ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... That Mr. Pope proposed to marry the heroine of his misadventure afforded a fair mark for raillery, no doubt, but Gay, in common with the run of educated England in 1718, did not aspire to be facetious at Pope's expense. The luxury was too costly. Offend the dwarf in any fashion, and were you the proudest duke at Court or the most inconsiderable rhymester in Petticoat Lane, it made no difference; there was no crime too heinous for "the great ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... Two souls, alas! are lodg'd within my breast, Which struggle there for undivided reign: One to the world, with obstinate desire, And closely-cleaving organs, still adheres; Above the mist, the other doth aspire, With sacred vehemence, to purer spheres. Oh, are there spirits in the air, Who float 'twixt heaven and earth dominion wielding, Stoop hither from your golden atmosphere, Lead me to scenes, new life and fuller yielding! A magic mantle did I but possess, Abroad to waft me as ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... to obtain wealth for himself, but had a number of relations for whom provision must also be made. To the more prominent courtiers above enumerated was added Jacques d'Albon de Saint-Andre, son of Henry's tutor, who, from accidental intimacy with the king in childhood, was led to aspire to high dignities in the state, and was not long in obtaining a marshal's baton.[552] Herself securing not only the rank of Duchess of Valentinois, with the authority of a queen,[553] but the enormous revenues derived from the customary confirmation of offices at the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... with imprudent warmth, "it is not the character of the aristocracy of this country to keep people down. They make way amongst themselves for any man, whatever his birth, who has the talent and energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial boast of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... infirmity where Catherine was concerned. But I did think that there was more than trust in the eyes that now melted into mine; there was liking at least, and gratitude enough to inspire one to win infinitely more. I went so far as to take in mine the hand to which I had dared to aspire in the temerity of my youth; nor shall I pretend for a moment that the old aspirations had not already mounted to their old seat in my brain. On the contrary, I was only wondering whether the honesty of voicing my hopes ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... precursor of the delightful cold season, the advent of which is anxiously looked for by every Anglo-Indian. The little khunjunee makes his appearance in the early part of November, and departs as the hot season approaches—I think in March or April. The note of this little bird can hardly aspire to be called a song; I used, however, to think it a pleasing twitter. I paid particular attention to two khunjunees, which used to return every season and haunt our habitation: they would pick up insects from the pavement, and eat the crumbs with which they were plentifully supplied. I have ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... moans the lady, catching at her dress entreatingly. "As you are hopeful, and I am hopeless; as a fair way in life is before you, which can never, never, be before me; as you can aspire to become a respected wife, and as you can aspire to become a proud mother, as you are a living loving woman, and must die; for GOD'S sake hear my ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... by that God who was at once Father and Son, and who chose for His mother her who was His daughter and handmaiden, I beg you to have mercy upon me!" "Ah, knight!" the maid exclaims, "pay no attention to what this traitor says! May God give thee all the joy and honour to which thou dost aspire, and may He give thee good success in thy undertaking." Then the knight is in a predicament, as he thinks and ponders over the question: whether to present to her the head she asks him to cut off, or whether he shall allow himself to be touched by pity for him. [417] He wishes to respect ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... chariot, Phaethon, Struck by Jove's thunder, rests beneath this stone. He could not rule his father's car of fire, Yet was it much so nobly to aspire. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... by her unexpected presence. Among a small circle of intimate acquaintances she counted Millicent Jaques the best and truest. They had drifted apart; but that was owing to Helen's lack of means. She was not able, nor did she aspire, to mix in the society that hailed the actress as a bright particular star. Yet it meant much to a girl earning her daily bread in a heedless city that she should possess one friend of her own age and sex who could speak of the golden ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... chosen. As a Nepthalim, you thought I had no right which you need respect and I would tamely submit to whatever you chose to do. You forgot that in my veins run the best blood of Earth and the proudest blood of Jupiter. Hortan was a Mildash of Jupiter, a rank to which you could never aspire. I restricted your efforts and proved to you a thing which I long have known, that, man to man, I am ...
— Giants on the Earth • Sterner St. Paul Meek
... is fitting," reminded Kassandane. "A woman must submit with humility to her quiet destiny, and not aspire to imitate the deeds ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in him a hatred of description and of illustration, we find these pictures to be illuminations from rich pages not observed by the common eye, decorations out of a world the like of which has been but too seldom seen by those who aspire to vision. Chansons sans paroles are they, ringing clearly and flawlessly to the eye as do those songs of Verlaine (with whom he has also some ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley
... after, the son of an emperor may be glad to mate himself with. Is it wonderful, then, that a Grand Duke of all the Russias should aspire to the first feminine genius of a free land, and to a certain modest extent ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... not accept the salute of your Duke, Mademoiselle, may I ask to what you aspire?' ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard
... conceived the idea that Jeff had been caught by his fair visitor. It had never occurred to him that any one could aspire to Margaret's hand. He had thought at one time that Jeff was in danger of falling a victim to the charms of the pretty daughter of an old friend and neighbor of his, and though it appeared rather a pity for a young fellow to fall ...
— "George Washington's" Last Duel - 1891 • Thomas Nelson Page
... interpretations put upon them by Jesus. Then one generation seems to follow another, and the long procession, even though the character of those composing it steadily improves, always ends at the same goal,—the grave. Millions live and die like the beasts that perish. They aspire, struggle, and are determined to rise, but just when they are fitted to endure, and to enter upon ampler spheres of service, the curtain falls on the tragedy, the stage scenery is changed, a new company of players takes their places, and the farce, for ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... pins and people are alike, and that rusty darning-needle need not stare so rudely, for I shall prove what I say. We are divided into classes by birth and constitution, and each can do much in its own sphere. I am a shawl pin, and it would be foolish in me to aspire to the duties of those dainty lace pins made to fasten a collar. I am contented with my lot, however, and, being of a strong make and enterprising spirit, have had many adventures, some perils, and great satisfactions since I left the factory long ago. I well remember how ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... before me of a peaceful existence, among a foreign people from whom all that is false in my position may be concealed—not for my sake, but for the sake of my child. To more than this, to the happiness which some women enjoy, I must not, I dare not, aspire. ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... however do them justice. One is a wit, and one a scholar. They have both shewn acuteness sufficient in the discovery of faults, and have both advanced some probable interpretations of obscure passages; but when they aspire to conjecture and emendation, it appears how falsely we all estimate our own abilities, and the little which they have been able to perform might have taught them more candour to the endeavours ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... think we shall pretend to treat you as a conquered people? such a desire could have entered into the heads of none but those who are inimical to our common happiness. We only aspire to see you free and happy; yourselves will frame your own government, choosing that form which is most consistent with your customs, your situation, and your wishes. Consequently, you will constitute a nation as free ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... regret, the Deputy Commissioner was down the river, and I did not see him. He is regarded as one of the ablest men in the service. His rise has been rapid, and he was lately invested with the C.I.E.—there seems, indeed, to be no position in Burma that he might not aspire to. In his absence his office was being administered by the Assistant Commissioner, a courteous young Englishman, who gave me my first experience of the Civil Service. I could not but envy the position of this young fellow, and marvel at the success which ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... all these kind speeches the young man only sadly shook his head. How could he, despised and contemned, dare to aspire to the daughter of such a man as Zeno? He ended with a deep sigh; and Melissa, whose heart grew heavier as they approached the Serapeum through the side streets, still forced herself to express her confidence as though the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for no reward," said Girofle. "And the hand of a Princess is an honour to which I do not aspire, since I am ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... which you are good enough to take into such kind consideration, permit me to assure you anew that I aspire to one only blessing—quiet time for work in my own room. Orare et laborare. The point of honor, which no one understands better than yourself, attaches me to Hungary, our country. May I fulfil there all my duty ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated
... may aspire though in the slough; May dream of glory, strive for fame, Thirst for the prestige of a name. And shall these friends, that so invite The study of the erudite, Ever as he beholds them now Perish like sparks ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... their daily actions, their familiar conversation, and catch the tone of their society. When we discover how far the most admirable community ever framed was removed from that perfection to which human society is impelled by some active power within each bosom to aspire, how great ought to be our hopes, how resolute our struggles! For the Greeks of the Periclean age were widely different from us. It is to be lamented that no modern writer has hitherto dared to show them precisely as they were. Barthelemi cannot be ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... compulsion must we obey her? The imperative mandates of our own hearts? But what if our hearts are at war with our heads? Are we to follow no higher law than the blind instinct that moves the house-fly? Or will we aspire to the indomitable soul of the mocking-birds that feed their young in captivity until they see they are prisoners for life, and then bring them poisonous spiders that they may die rather than live under such conditions? Shall ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... not to be surprised, therefore, that Penny should hold her pretty head rather high. No mere plowman would dare to aspire to the hand of a landlord's only daughter, and no marriageable farmer to whom Penny might aspire was to be found in the neighborhood. As to the military—Penny would have scouted the idea of wedding a common soldier, and was sensible enough ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... born 520 B.C.; i. 10, tells how the Master learns about government; i. 15, asks were it well to be poor but no flatterer; ii. 13, told that a gentleman sorts words to deeds; iii. 17, wishes to do away with sheep offering at new moon; v. 3, is a vessel; v. 8, cannot aspire to Yen Yuean; v. 11, wishes not to do unto others what he would not wish done to him; v. 12, not allowed to hear the Master on life or the Way of Heaven; v. 14, asks why K'ung-wen was styled cultured; vi. 6, ...
— The Sayings Of Confucius • Confucius
... have made it difficult for a Paris to decide between their rival claims to the golden apple; but her beauty eclipsed them all, though it was rather that of the haughty Diana than the smiling Venus. Men raved about her, declared her irresistible, worshipped at her shrine, but never dared aspire to her love; one scornful glance from her cold blue eyes effectually extinguished any nascent hope, and the cruel beauty punished presumption as relentlessly, and won and flung away hearts with as much nonchalance, ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... disliked as they think and hope they are. Even on the Continent, even in that strange tourist world where hostilities grow apace, where the courtesies of life are relaxed, and where every nationality presents its least lovable aspect, the English can never aspire to the prize of unpopularity. They are too silent, too clean, too handsome, too fond of fresh air, too schooled in the laws of justice which compel them to acknowledge—however reluctantly—the rights of other men. They are certainly ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... very little benefit derived from horse exercise as long as the patient travels in mortal fear. Foreigners teach riding on a buff leather demi-pique saddle,—a bad plan for the young, as the English saddle becomes a separate difficulty. But to those who merely aspire to constitutional canters, and who ride only for health, or as a matter of dignity, I strongly recommend the Somerset saddle, invented for one of that family of cavaliers who had lost a leg below the knee. This saddle is padded before the knee and behind the thigh to ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... have taken a more lofty career," said the old gentleman. "You aspire to the senate: and to literary honours. You wield the poet's pen, sir, and move in the circles of fashion. We keep an eye upon you at Clavering. We read your name in the lists of the select parties of the nobility. Why, it was only the other day that my ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who dwell at a distance, or do not feel inclined to take lessons, from a master. To such, one-third, at least, of our preceding observations are applicable; and we recommend an attentive perusal of what we have said, as to Mounting, the Aids, &c., before they aspire to the saddle. Our other remarks they will find useful when they have acquired ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... afraid of my lot in the next world, Annunciata; and although it is kind of you to be troubled about it, I fear you can do nothing to improve it. But my fate in this world I yearn to lay in your hands. I love you very dearly, Annunciata, and all I need to make me what I aspire to be is to have you give me a little affection in return. What do you say, Annunciata? do you think you could? Would you be my wife, and go with me to my own country and share my life, whatever it ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... that he is exercising authority. Let him feel his liberty as much in your actions as in his own. Add to the power he lacks exactly enough to make him free and not imperious, so that, accepting your aid with a kind of humiliation, he may aspire to the moment when he can dispense with it, and have the honor of serving himself. For strengthening the body and promoting its growth, nature has means which ought never to be thwarted. A child ought not to be constrained to stay anywhere when he wishes to go away, or to go away when he wishes ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... whistle call together a host of such authors as G. B. like Robin Hood's merry men in green. P. has regular regiments in pay. Poor writers are his crab-lice and suck at him for nutriment. His round pudding chops are their idea of plenty when in their idle fancies they aspire to ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... through passions dire, There beauty blends with mirth— Wild hearts, ye never did aspire Wholly ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... where they took me." (3) This is a flourish, if you will, but it is something more. His spirit would sometimes rise up in a fine anger against the petty desires and contrarieties of life. He would compare his own condition with the quiet and dignified estate of the dead; and aspire to lie among his comrades on the field of Agincourt, as the Psalmist prayed to have the wings of a dove and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. But such high thoughts came to Charles ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... take this very troublesome one of rearing a few children who serve only to exercise the patience." Joseph strove to imitate the fathers as much as possible, in self sacrifice and austerity, and desired to become a donne, "which was the most to which he could aspire, since he was only an Indian." That, however, being denied him, he was enrolled in the confraternity of the Correa or girdle, and admitted as a spiritual brother of the Recollect order. He acted as teacher of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various
... man in the world, worthy of yourself, is not within my power with truth. And since you force the confession from me, I declare, I think such beauty, such sense, and such goodness united, might aspire without vanity to the arms ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... As coward fears, or generous passions sway, Shall freedom reign, or heartless slaves obey. "Not unto chance must aught of power be given,— A country's genius is the gift of Heaven. What warms the poet's lays with generous fire, To which no toil can reach, no art aspire? Who taught the sage, with deepest wisdom fraught, While scarce one pupil grasps the ponderous thought? Nay, wherefore ask?—as Heaven the mind bestows, A Napier calculates and a Thomson glows. Now turn to where, beneath the city wall, The sun's fierce rays in unbroke splendour fall; Vacant ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... world, your high thoughts scorne, Vouchsafe this moniment of his last praise With some few silver dropping teares t'adorne; And as ye be of heavenlie off-spring borne, So unto heaven let your high minde aspire, 685 And loath this drosse of ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... agitators began to bestir themselves. What were the privileges of the higher classes which would sit most gracefully on their inferiors? Naturally we bethought us of their vices. It was not always so easy to adopt my lord's urbanity, his unassuming dignity, his well-bred ease; but one might reasonably aspire to be as wicked. Sabbath-breaking had long since ceased to be the privilege of the better classes, and so men's minds reverted to the question of divorce. "Let us get rid of our wives!" cried they; "who knows but the day may come when we shall ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... train of thought, the quiet dwelling upon mysteries, are all lost if one has to stumble and run in a prescribed track. To follow a service with uplifted attention requires more mental agility than I possess; point after point is raised, and yet, if one pauses to meditate, to wonder, to aspire, one is lost, and misses the thread of the service. I suppose that there is or ought to be something in the united act of intercession. But I dislike all public meetings, and think them a waste of time. I should make an exception in favour of the Sacrament, but the rapid disappearance ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... loving the divine in Man, in me, in you, that we rise to the love of our Maker. And in giving your proofs of the true religion, you speak of the surprising measures of the Christian Faith, enjoining man to acknowledge himself vile, base, abominable, and obliging him at the same time to aspire towards a resemblance of his Maker. Now, I see in this a foreshadowing of the theory of evolution, nay a divine warrant for it. Nor is it the Christian religion alone which unfolds to man the twofold mystery of his nature; others are as dark and as bright on either side of the pole. ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... unlike Colonel Price—went to the colonel and laid the matter off with a good deal of emphasis and flourishing of his knotted black stick. If a woman demanded blood, said the general, where could she aspire above Shelley? And beyond blood, what was there to be considered when it came to marrying and breeding up a race ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... him in his service: He was a man of few words, but much reflection: and, without troubling himself about other people's affairs, went silently and properly about his own business; more solicitous to discharge his duty, than to recommend himself to notice, and not seeming to aspire to any higher office than that of a serving man. This old man would fix his eyes upon Edmund, whenever he could do it without observation; sometimes he would sigh deeply, and a tear would start from his eye, which he strove to conceal from observation. ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... of our history. Milan saw entering its gates, bearing the proud name of King, the same hero who had already been proclaimed conqueror, liberator, peace-maker, and legislator, and who to-day, under his august Empire, assures that greatness to which his victories and his genius permit us to aspire. The Emperor entered by the gate named after his most glorious triumph, the ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... you have been reared—scenes which will have their peculiar and insidious perils. I foresee that you will rise to distinction in your studies. But do not seek high things for yourself. Be not anxious to become what is called a great preacher, nor aspire to a 'brilliant settlement.' Sacrifice not conscience for place and power and the applause of sect. Keep humble. Keep Christ ever before you; and may he watch between me and thee while we are separated from each other;" and she kissed him ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... Bloemfontein Camp: "My request for soap was met with the reply, 'Soap is a luxury.' ... Finally it was requisitioned for, also forage[36]—more tents—boilers to boil the drinking water—water to be laid on from the town—and a matron for the camp. Candles, matches, and such like I did not aspire to. It was about three weeks before the answer to the requisition came, and in the interim I gave away soap. Then we advanced a step. Soap was to be given, though so sparingly as to be almost useless—forage was too precious—brick boilers might be built—but ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... not; I'd rather be a charwoman! I don't aspire to be editress of the school magazine, I assure you, nor even a contributor. By the way, Honor, why don't you send something? ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... good will 'broad as ether,' she could enter into the needs, and sympathize with the various excellences, of the greatest variety of characters. One thing only she demanded of all her friends, that they should not be satisfied with the common routine of life,—that they should aspire to something higher, better, holier, than had ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton
... since his illness began; "my love for you proved too strong to be restrained just now: but believe me, I had fully made up my mind never to open my lips to you on the subject; for what right have I, a helpless, and, I fear, hopeless, invalid, to dare to aspire—" ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... motives, he made a fearful example of the kinsmen of his predecessor, four of whom he executed chiefly for the reason that they had been advanced by papal influence. This salutary example practically put an end to nepotism; at least the unfortunate nephews of Paul IV were the last to aspire to independent principalities solely on the strength ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... felicity, would be enhanced." These thoughts were mere phantoms of the brain, and never, by system, put into action; but, repeatedly indulged, they were practised by casual occurrences; and the dear-bought experiment of being loved in spite of her faults, (a glory proud women ever aspire to) was, at present, ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... story is true, then? And does the valorous knight aspire to the hand of the young lady whom he redeemed from peril? I did think that she was uncommonly dry to ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... colonisation. In the first place, the surplus manhood of a nation was lost to it if it was allowed to pass under an alien flag by emigration. Those continental states from which emigration took place on a large scale began to aspire after the possession of colonies of their own, where their emigrants could still be kept under control, and remain subject to the obligations of service. Germany, the state which beyond all others measures its strength by its fighting ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... kiom. Asp aspido. Asparagus asparago. Aspect vidigxo. Aspect (phase) fazo. Aspen tremolo. Asperse kalumnii. Asphalte asfalto. Asphyxia asfiksio. Aspirate elspiri. Aspirant aspiranto. Aspiration (breathing) elspiro—ado. Aspiration (aim, intention) celo. Aspire celi. Ass azeno. Assail ataki. Assailant atakanto. Assassin mortiganto. Assault atako. Assay provo. Assemble kunveni, kunvoki. Assembly kunveno, auxditorio. Assent konsenti, jesi. Assert certigi. Assess taksi. Assessment takso. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... insult. Her conduct was open, her mind superior to deceit; and to be ignorant of this would be to shew myself unworthy of her. The lover should disdain to excite his mistress to any action which he would disapprove in a wife; and this was a rule not to be infringed, by him who should aspire to the noble-minded Olivia. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... dead lords of song, Great masters who have made us what we are, For thou and they have taught us how to long And feel a sacred want of the fair and far: Reign, and keep life in this our deep desire— Our only greatness is that we aspire. ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... does aspire To empire, whether truly great, His head, his heart, his hand, conspire To make him ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... O mother maiden, Ten thousand hearts aspire; In this life, sorrow-laden, Thee only they desire; In thee they hope for healing; In thee expect true rest, When thou, their safety sealing, Shalt clasp ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... consummation of motherhood had lifted her status—in her own eyes at least—did she venture to speak intimately with Nevil on this vital matter. Though debarred from sharing of sacred ceremonies, she could still aspire to be true Sahardamini—'spiritual helpmate.' But to that end he also must co-operate; he must ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... achievement be regarded, the riches before us only expose the poverty of praise. So clear was he in his great office that no ideal of the Leader or the Ruler can be formed that does not shrink by the side of the reality. And so has he impressed himself upon the minds of men, that no man can justly aspire to be the chief of a great free people who does not adopt his principles and emulate his example. We look with amazement on such eccentric characters as Alexander, Caesar, Cromwell, Frederick, and Napoleon; but when the serene face of Washington ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... lady whose reputation has never been assailed, would but add to the general belief in your own guilt, and the certainty of your fate; such charges would be regarded as a paltry subterfuge, and no one would credit them. Go, fellow—the bat cannot consort with the eagle, nor can such as you aspire to even the most distant familiarity with persons of my rank. Depart, instantly; and to-morrow you shall receive a pecuniary reward that will amply compensate you for ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... set herself about the important business God has entrusted her with, unafraid, and confident of her divine mission. She should direct her mind into wholesome and optimistic channels; she should read inspiring books and think loving and large thoughts. She should pray and aspire! and always should she carry in her mind the ideal of the child she would mother, and command from the great Source of all Opulence the qualities she would desire ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... not, thus when Freedom's ills I state, I mean to flatter kings, or court the great; Ye powers of truth, that bid my soul aspire, Far from my bosom drive the low desire; And thou, fair Freedom, taught alike to feel 365 The rabble's rage, and tyrant's angry steel; Thou transitory flower, alike undone By proud contempt, or favour's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... seating us, such liberal portion gave To each, as hospitality requires. 945 Our thirst, at length, and hunger both sufficed, I, foremost speaking, ask'd you to the wars, And ye were eager both, but from your sires Much admonition, ere ye went, received. Old Peleus charged Achilles to aspire 950 To highest praise, and always to excel. But thee, thy sire Menoetius thus advised. "My son! Achilles boasts the nobler birth, But thou art elder; he in strength excels Thee far; thou, therefore, with discretion rule 955 His inexperience; thy ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... a crime, Mother, to aspire to high office. The bee is in poor Chase's bonnet. He can't help it. I've felt the thing tickle myself. If he can beat me let ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... without piers or any supports, and machines and unheard-of engines." Bacon goes on to speak of other wonders of Nature and Art, to prove, that, to produce marvellous effects, it is not necessary to aspire to the knowledge of magic, and ends this division of his subject with words becoming a philosopher:—"Yet wise men are now ignorant of many things which the common crowd of students [vulgus studentium] will ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... to know, Mr Inquisitive Pet, as I suppose you are,' said the happy and fond Sophronia, smiling, 'it was any one who should venture to aspire to Georgiana.' ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... you do comfort me; you are like a soothing balm to an aching pain," and she kissed the hands that held hers. This was all that modest little Jane required. She was content to be an humble balm and did not aspire to the dignity of ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... desires of the great aspire high. (He walks about and speaks to some one not visible.) Ancient Shakalya, how is Marichi's holy son occupied? (He listens.) What do you say? That he is explaining to Aditi, in answer to her question, the duties of a faithful wife? My matter must await a fitter time. (He turns to the king.) ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... the means, the form from the matter, the subject from the expression; they inhere in and completely saturate each other; and to it, therefore, to the condition of its perfect moments, all the arts may be supposed constantly to tend and aspire. Music, then, and not poetry, as is so often supposed, is the true type or measure of perfected art. Therefore, although each art has its incommunicable element, its untranslatable order of impressions, ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... but the salvation of the country. A perusal of our history of several thousand years will reveal in vivid manner the sad fate of the descendants of ancient kings and emperors. What then could have prompted me to aspire to the Throne? Yet while the representatives of the people were unwilling to believe in the sincerity of my refusal of the offer, a section of the people appear to have suspected me of harbouring the desire of gaining more power and privileges. Such difference in thought ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... lads of the fancy I needs must aspire To be quite au fait; and I have scarcely seen Of mills half a score, ere I'm fore'd to retire— O thou greenest among all the green ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... and I promise to make you as rich as the proudest in the land; rich enough to bend to your wishes the most powerful—even the daughter of Augustin Pena, for whom your passion has not escaped me. This day you may aspire to her hand without being deemed foolish; for I tell you, you are as rich as her own father. Swear, then, to pursue to the death the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... date the entry of this title into English history as a mark of rank in the baronage, more and more freely bestowed, a title of honour to which a family of great possessions or influence might confidently aspire. But it must be remembered that the earldoms thus created are quite different from those of the Anglo-Saxon state or from the countships of France. They carried with them increase of social consideration and ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... upon my esteem, that the utmost which I feel able to ask of you under the circumstances is, that, in the two or three days you will yet remain with us, you will allow yourself but one thought concerning me, and that is, that I aspire to be an honest man, and to do not only what the world thinks right, but even what such a conscientious soul as yours must consider so. Are you willing to regard me in this light, and will my mere word be sufficient to ...
— The Mill Mystery • Anna Katharine Green
... deeps or skies Burnt the ardour of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire— What the hand dare ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... way into the pages of far more pretending works than this of mine, in some form or other, with more or less of fidelity to the truth, and real events, and real motives; while the humbler matters it will be my office to record, will be entirely overlooked by writers who aspire to enrol their names among the Tacituses of former ages. It may be well to say here, however, I shall not attempt the historical mood at all, but content myself with giving the feelings, incidents, and interests of what is purely ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... noted and wealthy men in the world, including the self-made men of our country. The book is edited by one of the most successful men of the present age, whose own example is in itself guide enough for those who aspire to fame and money. The book will ...
— The Bradys Beyond Their Depth - The Great Swamp Mystery • Anonymous
... that satiety brings in its train, cynicism, pessimism, the drying up of the very springs of life. "The body chilled, jaded and ruined, the cup of pleasure drained to the dregs, the senses exhausted of their power to enjoy, the spirit of its wish to aspire, nothing left but loathing, craving and rottenness." See Spedding in 'Edinburgh Review' for April, 1843. The poem concludes by leaving as an answer to the awful question, "can there be final salvation for the poor wretch?" a reply undecipherable by man, and dawn breaking in angry splendour. ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... largest articles with a zeal honourable to literature and most useful to the public. They made this dictionary their commonplace book for all their curious acquisitions; every one competent to write a short article, preserving an important fact, did not aspire to compile the dictionary, or even an entire article in it; but it was a treasury in which such mites collected together formed its wealth; and all the literati may be said to have engaged in perfecting ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... thrilled at the thought of what a man might do under such an inspiration. To what might he not aspire? To what heights might he not soar? Success must be his. No disaster ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... that "age of admiration" as sings the poet of "Human Life," when the spell breathed into our ear by our genius, fortunate or unfortunate, is—"Aspire!" Then we adore art and the artists. It was RICHARDSON'S enthusiasm which gave REYNOLDS the raptures he caught in meditating on the description of a great painter; and REYNOLDS thought RAPHAEL the most extraordinary man the world had ever ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... took up a position before the fireplace, after casting a glance at Modeste, which slipped like a ray of light between his heavy half-closed eyelids. He perceived, in this unexpected incident, a chance of interrogating the heart of his sovereign. Dumay thought for a moment that the clerk dared to aspire to Modeste, and he exchanged a rapid glance with the others, who understood him, and began to eye the little man with a species of ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... other great artists, to introduce into his early writings incidental sketches which serve as studies for further work of a later period. In much the same manner the varied, but at times uncertain, melody of the early love comedies seems to aspire towards the full sonority and magic of lyric feeling and ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... hope. Health means more, life has a meaning. We find happiness in the company of those who are striving for higher ideals. We perform even our menial tasks with more care and with more interest, because we grasp their true meaning, and we know that we cannot aspire to higher ideals if we are dishonest in little things. So the study habit makes better men and better women of us, and it adds to the pleasure of life all the real pleasure there is in living. The power to analyze, to conceive, and to create are the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... and are so clever and accomplished—don't shake your head and say no—HE always used to say you were—you will be charmed with Mr. Veal's parties. The last Tuesday in every month. He says there is no place in the bar or the senate that Georgy may not aspire to. Look here," and she went to the piano-drawer and drew out a theme of Georgy's composition. This great effort of genius, which is still in the possession of George's mother, is ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plan; who travel forward, not aimlessly, but toward a destination; who sail, not anywhither, but toward a port; who steer, not by the clouds, but by the fixed stars. High in the scale of manhood these who ceaselessly aspire toward ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... obvious;—they who, like Mr. Sheridan, aim only to be men of wit, lie a bed; while they who, like Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Burke, and a very few others, aspire to be men of wisdom, rise with the lark. ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... of a child to a flower is the reality to which we now aspire; though even this is a privilege reserved for the more fortunate children. But let us beware of so grave an error. The babe is a man. That which suffices for a plant cannot be sufficient for him. Consider the depth of misery into which a paralyzed man has sunk when we say of ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... about four hundred years in the county of Suffolk, and produced an eminent and wealthy serjeant-at-law, Sir Gregory Edgar, in the reign of Henry the Seventh. Of the sons of Robert Gibbon, (who died in 1643,) Matthew did not aspire above the station of a linen-draper in Leadenhall-street; but John has given to the public some curious memorials of his existence, his character, and his family. He was born on Nov. 3d, 1629; his education was liberal, at a grammar-school, and afterwards ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... always fought fairly, slain unfairly by us?' Having reflected in this strain for a long while, king Yudhishthira the just, filled with fear and grief, said these words unto Vasudeva: 'Through thy grace, O Govinda, my kingdom hath been reft of thorns! That which we could not in imagination even aspire to obtain hath now become ours, O thou of unfading glory! Before my eyes, O mighty-armed one, making the very hair stand on end, violent were the blows that thou hadst to bear, O delighter of the Yadavas! In the battle between the gods and the Asuras, thou hadst, in days of old, lent ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... integral part of the Spanish monarchy, but must be governed by special laws not applicable to Spain, and persist in ruling her under the erroneous and unjust European colonial system, the growing wealth and increasing intelligence of the Cubans lead them to aspire to some share in the elimination of the political principles under which their own affairs shall be administered. A like antagonism exists in the economic relations of the two countries. While the people of Cuba are not averse to the raising of such revenue ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... your duty; for it has been a known and established rule above twenty years in England that the first advances have been constantly made me by all ladies who aspire to my acquaintance, and the greater their quality the greater were ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... girl!" she murmured. For almost an hour she sat looking fixedly at the unlit logs, hardly conscious of the wasted time. Much might have gone into that hour. There was tea for her at one of the college houses—the hostess had a "day," and went so far as to aspire to the exclusive serving of a certain kind of tinned fancy biscuit every Friday—if she wanted to drop in. This hostess invited favored students to meet the faculty and townspeople on these occasions, and the two latter classes were expected to effect a social fusion with the ...
— A Reversion To Type • Josephine Daskam
... city contrast with and jostle each other. The Mikado and his ministers, naval and military officers and men, the whole of the civil officials and the police, wear European clothes, as well as a number of dissipated-looking young men who aspire to represent "young Japan." Carriages and houses in English style, with carpets, chairs, and tables, are becoming increasingly numerous, and the bad taste which regulates the purchase of foreign furnishings is as marked as the good taste which everywhere presides over the adornment of the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... empires—British India and Russia in Asia—she has still a part to play in history. And I may again note that Al-Islam is based upon the fundamental idea of a Republic which is, all (free) men are equal, and the lowest may aspire to the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... have no lack of holiday amusement; our puppets to admire, and greasy poles to climb for prizes by men who have been prudently required first to declare and register their ambition at the Bureau of Police. Government so gets something like a list of the men who aspire; who wish to mount. It must be very useful. There are our water tournaments at St. Cloud and at Boulogne-sur-Seine; where they who have informed the police of their combative propensities, may thrust at each other with long-padded poles from boats which are being rowed forcibly into ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... than to his judgment. My writings, therefore, may appear light and trifling in our country of philosophers and politicians; but if they possess merit in the class of literature to which they belong, it is all to which I aspire in the work. I seek only to blow a flute accompaniment in the national concert, and leave others to play the ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... seas with small avail, Vain objects serve for dreadful rocks to quail My brittle boat from haven of life that flies To haunt the sea of mundane miseries. My soul that draws impressions from above, And views my course, and sees the winds aspire, Bids reason watch to scape the shoals of love; But lawless will enflamed with endless ire Doth steer empoop,[B] whilst reason doth retire. The streams increase; love's waves my bark do fill; Thus are they wracked that guide ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... shall interfere with my voting on that day," the bishop declared, with grim emphasis. "We must dispose of this fellow's pretensions once for all. It is preposterous that a professional baseball player and street-car conductor should aspire to become mayor of Warwick. An orator? Nonsense! Just a paltry gift of the gab. Balaam's is n't the only ass whose mouth the Lord in his inscrutable wisdom has ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... bidding the stars good-bye; but she was renewing a promise. Though their challenge is universal and eternal, the stars get no answer but that,—the brief light flashed back to them from the eyes of the young who unaccountably aspire. ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... issuing from its gulf, And diving back, a living topaz each, With all this laughter on its bloomy shores, Are but a preface, shadowy of the truth They emblem: not that, in themselves, the things Are crude; but on thy part is the defect, For that thy views not yet aspire so high." Never did babe, that had outslept his wont, Rush, with such eager straining, to the milk, As I toward the water, bending me, To make the better mirrors of mine eyes In the refining wave; and, as the eaves Of mine eyelids did drink of it, forthwith Seem'd it unto me ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... myself, was an imported Englishman, had, like me, indulged in dreams of going back to England to fill some great railway post, but he had reached his sixties and his dreams were over. Often, when we talked familiarly together, he would say: "Joseph, if you aspire to be a general manager in England you ought never to have come to Ireland. They don't think much on the other side of Irish railways or Irish railway men." This, I daresay, was true, though he, well known, liked and admired as he was, ought ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... of men always aspire still farther the farther they advance, Bonaparte was no longer content with the possession of a small house in Paris. He now wanted an establishment ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... December. You know what high esteem I profess for Joachim's talent, and when you have heard him I am certain you will find that my praises of him latterly are by no means exaggerated. He is an artist out of the common, and one who may legitimately aspire to a ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... difficultly attainable in Chili, their talents have no opportunity of being developed, and are mostly employed in trifling pursuits; and as the expence of printing is enormous, they are discouraged from literary exertion, so that few among them aspire to the reputation of becoming authors. The knowledge of the civil and canon law is held in high estimation, so that many of the youth of Chili, after completing their academical education in their own country, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the laughter of the Turk, Mae Thurston's welcome, experiments in the physics laboratory. And he was sure that he was progressing toward the state of grace in which he might aspire ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... resurrection; And, if 'tis real, it nothing knows of rue! Each Beauty in the world is sole, unique; So must the love be that would Beauty seek! So long as Youth lives on with pulse afire, Out to the chase! To victories new aspire! ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... themselves for truth extraordinary. They can face the general judgement, but they should hesitate to produce work that appeals to the last judgement, which is the judgement within. There is too much reason to divine that a certain number of those who aspire to differ from the greatest of masters have no temperaments worth speaking of, no point of view worth seizing, no vigilance worth awaiting, no mood worth waylaying. And to be, de parti pris, an Impressionist ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... in his bounty to others." While he was recounting these undoubted facts, the people by a great majority elected him king. The same ambition which had prompted Tarquin, in other respects an excellent man, to aspire to the crown, followed him whilst on the throne. And being no less mindful of strengthening his own power, than of increasing that of the commonwealth, he elected a hundred into the fathers, who from that time were called Minorum Gentium, i. e. of the ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confined the sound. When the full organ joins the tuneful choir, The immortal powers incline their ear; Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire, While solemn airs improve the sacred fire; And angels lean from heaven to hear. Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, To bright Cecilia greater power is given; His numbers raised a shade from hell, Hers lift the soul ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... rather pray that if you have any other more exquisite torment you would inflict it on us. We are determined never to violate the fidelity which we owe to God, or to deny Jesus Christ our Saviour, for he is our God, from whom we have our being, and to whom alone we aspire." The tyrant became almost distracted with fury, and commanded Diodorus to be burned alive, Serapion to be beheaded, and Papias to be drowned. This happened on the 25th of February; on which day the Roman and other western Martyrologies name them; but the Greek ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... fussy woman. And few can aspire to regulate the destinies of their species, even in so slight a point as an hour's amusement, without rare powers. There is no greater sin than to be trop prononcee. A want of tact is worse than a want of virtue. Some women, it is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... who could write that last sentence look upon poetry not only as a responsible, but as a dangerous pursuit. Men who aspire to be poets are gamblers. In all the lotteries of the literary life none is so uncertain as this. A million chances that you don't win the prize to one chance that you do. It is a curious thing that ever so thoughtful and conscientious an author may not know whether ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... paid this rent for the last two hours, and I aspire to get rid of it; but there is a sort of history attached to it, and I don't know ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... engaged to her:* (* Flinders' Papers.) "Learn music, learn the French language, enlarge the subjects of thy pencil, study geography and astronomy and even metaphysics, sooner than leave thy mind unoccupied. Soar, my Annette, aspire to the heights of science. Write a great deal, work with thy needle a great deal, and read every book that comes in thy way, save ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... disappeared, their work being done by the foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the rest of the state. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man could pass through all the great dignities of the state with a very limited experience of military life. Cicero himself ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... scenes through which I had passed; and the hardships I had endured had given additional mildness to my character. In the theatre upon which I was now placed I had no rival. My mechanical occupation had hitherto been a non-resident; and the schoolmaster, who did not aspire to the sublime heights of science I professed to communicate, was willing to admit me as a partner in the task of civilising the unpolished manners of the inhabitants. For the parson, civilisation was ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... objection. He postulates four mental faculties: sensation possessed by oysters, imagination possessed by higher animals, reason possessed by man, intelligence possessed by God. Consequently man should aspire towards God instead of indulging his faculties of sensation and imagination, which he shares with the ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... sight than such a person trying to compete with an iron-sinewed miner on the goldfields, or with a hardy, nine-lifed bushman in the back country? In the back country, a penniless and friendless 'gentleman,' if sober and honest and possessed of some little ability, may aspire to the position of a station storekeeper. If destitute of these advantages—and reduced 'gentlemen' are not by any means always sober, honest, and capable—the best thing he can do, if he gets the chance, is to settle down thankfully into the innocent occupation so ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... are covered with the professions of faith of citizens who aspire to the honour of a seat in the National Assembly. We have the candidate averse to public affairs, but yielding to the request of a large number of supporters; the candidate who feels within himself the power to save the country, and comes forward to do ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... five, or ten, or twice ten strong are these suitors, but many more by much: from Dulichium came there fifty and two, they and their servants; twice twelve crossed the seas hither from Samos; from Zacynthus twice ten; of our native Ithacans, men of chief note, are twelve who aspire to the bed and crown of Penelope; and all these under one strong roof—a fearful odds against two! My father, there is need of caution, lest the cup which your great mind so thirsts to taste of vengeance prove bitter to yourself in the drinking. And ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB
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