"Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... money invested in mythical towns, which towns are to rival in their growth Toledo, Chicago or St. Louis. The dream is to do nothing and get rich. Land sharks, speculators, usurers and politicians who aspire to a notoriety they will never win—a station they will never occupy—swarm over the West thicker than frogs in Egypt, and more intrusive than were these squatting, crawling, jumping pests, when evoked from the river's slime ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... disliked Roscoe Conkling and all his ways. Conkling once said to him: 'If you will join us and act with us, there is nothing in the gift of the State of New York to which you may not reasonably aspire.' To which Wheeler replied: 'Mr. Conkling, there is nothing in the gift of the State which will compensate me for the forfeiture of my own self-respect.'"—Hoar, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... you will vouchsafe me an Audience of Quarter of an Hour; I shall look upon it as the greatest Condescension in you, and as the greatest Honour done me. I told him he mistook my Title, and gave me one I never did aspire to; but that I was very ready to hear and serve him, for I had seen him often at Court offering Petitions, which were always rejected, and I had a ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... of Methodism, and the civil interests of the country. I have never received one acre of land, nor one farthing from Government, nor of any public money. I have never written one line at the request of any person connected with the Government. I count it to be the highest honour to which I can aspire to be a Methodist preacher; and in this relation to the Church and to the world I shall count it my highest joy to ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... And, purged by pain, For aye endure! Let Felix sacrifice me to thine ire, Yea, let my rival captivate the soul Of her who now with Decius doth conspire To chain immortal hope to earthly goal; Let earth-bound men pursue the world's desire, Sense charms not him who doth to Heaven aspire! Hail pain! Disdain All Earthly love, To seek above A holier fire! Oh, Love that passeth knowledge be my stay, And fire my heart to beat alone for thee! Sun of my soul?—oh, flash one purest ray In that last hour supreme—to comfort me, So life's brief night shall merge in endless day! Come, Death! ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... With Chearful Lays, or Sweet Condoling Strains; Or with a Sonnet make the Vallies ring, To Welcome home the Goddess of the Spring? Or wou'd you in sublimer Themes engage, And sing of Worthies who adorn the Age? Or, with Promethean Boldness, wou'd aspire To Catch a Spark of the Celestial Fire That Crowned the Royal Conquest, and could raise Juverne's Boyn above Scamander's Praise? Drink, drink Inspiring TEA, and boldly draw A Hercules, a Mars, ...
— The Little Tea Book • Arthur Gray
... hereafter aspire unto, thou mayest even now enjoy and possess, if thou doest not envy thyself thine own happiness. And that will be, if thou shalt forget all that is past, and for the future, refer thyself wholly to the Divine Providence, and shalt bend and apply all ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... Republics; but all of them had, at least, the saving grace of frankness. The aim and end of their policy was to arrive safely in Paris, with the contents of the national treasury as their baggage. They did not hunger after honours, such as knighthoods, or aspire to speak at Sunday afternoon gathering in pseudo-places of worship. Certainly, they told a number of flamboyant falsehoods before getting into office, but that was the only respect in which they ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... 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 private life, connecting them no farther ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... opinions, yet they may be persuaded out of them; they may be touched by the affecting earnestness of serious conversation, and allured by the attractive beauty of a consistently serious life. And while a young woman ought to dread the name of a wrangling polemic, it is her duty to aspire after the honourable character of a sincere Christian. But this dignified character she can by no means deserve, if she is ever afraid to avow her principles, or ashamed to defend them. A profligate, who makes it a point to ridicule everything ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin
... the 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
... 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 favor's fostering sun, Still may thy blooms the changeful ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... and since they could not be developed by the State it is not strange that private initiative was stimulated by offering men great and immediate rewards. These rewards have encouraged individuals and associations of individuals to aspire to a quick achievement of great economic power, and their aspirations have been realized. Such achievements have been a dominating feature of our business life, and we have regarded them as an index of ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... over a hated husband, and possessing a handsome competency. Now she mingles in the best society. She associates with lords and ladies. She enjoys life in England, while I am an exile. No doubt she passes for a fine young widow. No doubt, too, she has lots of admirers. They aspire to her hand. They write poetry to her. They make love ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... suis," which is generally taken to mean that his whole family were received with him. We see from it, too, how earnest was the desire of the superiors of the monasteries to instruct the ignorant; how rich and poor alike in the C7 might aspire to the monastic life, the only passport being the honest desire to serve God ...
— Early Double Monasteries - A Paper read before the Heretics' Society on December 6th, 1914 • Constance Stoney
... doubtless aware that there are at present, in and around Kabul, personages not destitute of influence, who themselves aspire to the sovereignty he seeks, and that the family of Yakub has still numerous personal adherents, who may possibly take advantage of the withdrawal of our troops to oppose the Sirdar's authority if he is not personally present ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... wide-eyed over the heads of guests, occasionally, when he was vehement, throwing his head up, shooting his words at the ceiling as if they had been Greek fire. Now, as he got up to leave her, his eyes dwelt earnestly on her. "It will be a pleasure, to which I shall aspire—that of meeting ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... should sacrifice his future to his present welfare; and in obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority which is rightfully its own. When a religion founds its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every human heart, it may aspire to universal dominion: but when it connects itself with a government, it must necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, in forming an alliance with a political power, religion augments its authority over ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... 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, and since that period Holland has gradually sunk, and seemingly ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... baleful power, and convinced that the heart of this great, courteous, patient, longsuffering Slavic people is groping for expression of self-government, and that America is their ideal—a hazy ideal and one that they aspire toward only in general outlines. Their ultimate self-government may not take the shape of American constitutionalism, but Russian self-government must in time come out of the very wrack of foreign and internecine war. And every American soldier who fought the Bolshevik Russian in arms or ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... play; and, in a spirit of play, they contrive to copy to its last and least detail our work. If we play golf or tennis, they also play these games. Are we painters of pictures or writers of books, they too aspire to ...
— The American Child • Elizabeth McCracken
... not asking them to go up! George was excessively disappointed. He watched Miss Wheeler and Laurencine disappear into the rich and guarded interior with envy, as though they had entered a delectable paradise to which he could not aspire; and the fact that Miss Wheeler had vaguely invited him to call did not brighten him very much. He had assumed that he would see Lois ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... 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
... should capture beautiful maidens on purpose for him to rescue. Van Tiefel was but a stepping-stone; he was not made for the desk of a counting-house. No heights dazzled him; he saw himself being made a peer or a prince, being granted wide domains by a grateful monarch. He was not too low to aspire to the hand of a king's fair daughter; he was a hero, every inch a hero. Great is the power of beer. Avaunt! ye sallow teetotalers, ye ...
— Orientations • William Somerset Maugham
... the Dalmatian seaboard that tempted Austria to occupy Bosnia, and so conversely the acquisition of Bosnia by Serbia would at once compel the latter, willy-nilly (quite apart from all racial affinities or sentiments), to aspire to ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... to me that if I were in your place—young, no cares or anxieties, with such a start, such influence, and such a prospect—I should not be able to contain myself for joy! I should, indeed, aspire to be the "bride of the Lamb," and to follow Him in conflict for the Salvation of poor, lost, miserable man. I pray the Lord to show it to you, and so to enamour you of Himself, that you may see and feel it to be your chief joy to win them for Him. I say I pray for this—yes, I groan for ...
— Catherine Booth - A Sketch • Colonel Mildred Duff
... does aspire To empire, whether truly great, His head, his heart, his hand, conspire To make him equal to ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... were to be judge, I should find no one worthy of that honour. All the princes of the world would be too mean to aspire to you; the gods alone can pretend to you, and you would have from ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... her to marry him as the best way of being safe and respectable, to endeavour to procure an honest livelihood by following some humble occupation, and to forget the station to which their birth entitled them to aspire. He was almost hopeless of a speedy change of times. He feared the spirit of the nation was so broken that it would submit to the establishment of the usurping family. Policy would teach Cromwell to soften the terrors of his administration ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... mixed and the Martini shimmers in the first rays of the electric light, then I humanize and harmonize, For me gin is a tonic, rum a restorative, vermuth a balm. Once I am stocked up with ales, wines, liquors, and cigars, I become attuned to the nobler sentiments of life. I aspire. I make friends with lonely derelicts whose digestions have foundered on seas of vichy and buttermilk, and I show them the joys of alcoholism—without cost. We share each other's pleasures and perplexities, at my expense. They are ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... conundrums like these that have taxed human ingenuity and made of life such an alluring adventure. On the conquering of difficulties civilization has been built up. Well, man now attacked this problem of telling time. He did not aspire to narrow it down to any very fine point, for at that period of history one day was very like another, and he was a leisurely being with little to do but eat, sleep, fight or hunt. Notwithstanding this, however, he did want ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, original, native force. The ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... version of the matter. And hence, although not so designed at first, this Diary will furnish more authentic data of many of the events of the war than the grave histories that will be written. Still, I do not aspire to be the Froissart of these interesting times: but intend merely to furnish my children, and such others as may read them, with reliable chronicles of the events passing under my ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... later book Boethius gives a clearer key to the 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 ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... bring those who have produced this crisis to see the folly before they feel the misery of civil strife, and inspire a returning veneration for that Union which, if we may dare to penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of attaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... of a road is the pride of all its employees; all the trainmen aspire to a place on the flyer. It never starts out on any run without the good wishes of the entire force, and it seldom puffs out of the train-shed and over the maze of rails in the yard without receiving the homage of those who happen to be within ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... be. You must give them up—the idea and the girl. What! You, who contrive the father's dishonor, would aspire to the daughter's hand? It is not equable. Love her honorably, or not at all. The course you are following is base and wholly ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... sounds at his command. But for the dwarfs who live in the gloom of Niebelheim he chooses deep shades of red, the lowest vibrating colour of the solar spectrum. For it is in the nature of the spiritual part of mankind to shrink from the earth, to aspire to something higher; a bird soaring in the blue above us has something of the ethereal; we give wings to our angels. On the other hand, a serpent impresses us as something sinister. Trees, with their strange fight against all the laws of gravity, striving upward unceasingly, bring us something ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... distinguished services in the war, which, in the assembly of the people, was communicated by one person to another. [339] Ad id locorum, 'until then,' 'until that time,' as in chap. 72: post id locorum. See Zumpt, S 434. Marius did not venture to aspire to the consulship; for appetere is not the same as petere, the latter denoting the actual suit or canvass. His ambition had not yet been directed to that highest of all offices, until religious ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... had all 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 avow ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... voice which had 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
... glorious woman, the greatest woman in the world. But lemme give you piece 'vice—pah! still drunk. They water my vinegar. [He shakes himself; clears his throat; and resumes soberly.] If Catherine takes a fancy to you, you may ask for roubles, diamonds, palaces, titles, orders, anything! and you may aspire to everything: field-marshal, admiral, minister, what you ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... 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)
... 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 ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... the Portuguese, signifying to "command," to Chinese official functionaries, of which there are some nine orders, distinguished by the buttons on their caps, and they are appointed chiefly for their possession of the requisite qualifications for the office they aspire to. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Devonshire firm, who knew nothing of his antecedents, to take him into partnership, and also ingratiated himself with a clergyman, who accepted his drafts for a large amount. Thus supplied with ready money he returned to London, where he lived in splendid style, and even went so far as to aspire to a seat in the House of Commons. For a time all appeared to go well; but suspicions gradually arose with regard to his character and his resources, and he was declared a bankrupt. Deserting his wife and her two children, he fled from his creditors. For ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... situation ironical 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 than it quickened into ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... calamity! It must be avoided at all costs." "What counts above all here is commercial interest. All who live by it are, here as elsewhere, almost too pacific." "Under the economic conditions prevailing in Germany, the most glorious victory she can aspire to—it is a ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... shift below. Looking upon the tribes of earth, I have seen how the multitude are swayed, and tracked the steps that lead weakness into power; and fain would I be the ruler of one who, if abased, shall aspire ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... sottishness of others. They never dreamed that these pretended warriors, whose bloodless swords had rusted in their scabbards, would attempt to snatch the staff of command from the veteran generals of France; and that nobles who had grown old in sloth and ignorance would aspire to the direction of ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... that unless Life which is very Man acted into that which in itself is not life, the formation of anything such as exists in man would be impossible, in whom are thousands of thousands of things that make a one, and that unanimously aspire to an image of the Life from which they spring, that man may become a receptacle and abode of that Life. From all this it can be seen that love, and out of the love the will, and out of the will the heart, strive unceasingly towards ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... one of those honest visionaries sometimes met in Ireland, said:—"For my own part, I confess that I aspire to complete independence. Then, and not till then, would the two countries be friendly. We in Ulster are ten times more patriotic than Irishmen elsewhere, for it is in Ulster that we have been most deeply wronged. The Hamiltons of Abercorn planted the country round here with Scotch settlers, ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... fancy of the reader, more 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 ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... now," he continued, "going to present to each one of you a set of rules, principles, guides—-call them what you will. On this paper each one of you will find laid down rules that should be burned into the memories of all young men who aspire to play football. Do not lose your copies of these rules. Read the rules over again and again. Memorize them! Above all, put ...
— The High School Left End - Dick & Co. Grilling on the Football Gridiron • H. Irving Hancock
... 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 of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... at first a new and unknown man, whom all we who aspire to the same honors consider as a pattern to lead us on to industry and virtue, was undoubtedly at liberty to enjoy his repose at Tusculum, a most salubrious and convenient retreat. But he, mad as some people think him, though no necessity compelled him, preferred being tossed about ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... marriage and the marriages of many other members of the English aristocracy whose domestic lives have latterly seen the light of day—whether less of moral spirit and more of physical courage is not the great need among women who aspire to the peerage. Strong nerves and a martial spirit, if they could not secure peace, would at least place the combatants upon a more equal footing, and the world would be spared the spectacle of the mild-mannered and meek bullied ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... useful, and 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
... 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
... 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 to undertake ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... activity of closely united men who, employing symbolical forms borrowed principally from the mason's trade and from architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving morally to ennoble themselves and others, and thereby to bring about a universal league of mankind, which they aspire to exhibit even now on a ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... Bogle's was a young man named Seeders, who worked in a laundry office. Mr. Seeders was thin and had light hair, and appeared to have been recently rough-dried and starched. He was too diffident to aspire to Aileen's notice; so he usually sat at one of Tildy's tables, where he devoted himself ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... really so the man had doubtless already received answers and chosen. There must be so many others looking like herself for a haven of safety, for deliverance from lives that were unendurable. Who was she that she should aspire to this thing? To such a man she could bring but health impaired, but the remnants of her former strength. In a bit of looking-glass she saw her dark-rimmed eyes and deemed that she had lost all such looks ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... be equivalent to desiring to be shelved, and I aspire to become a post-captain and to get my flag some day," answered Jack. "Our case is not worse than that of many others. Some friends of mine have been sent off to sea a few days only after they ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... Let the watchword be "ASPIRE!" Noble Christian youth; Whatsoe'er be God's behest, Try to do that duty best, In the strength of ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the home, the tyrannical and sterile education of the rare centers of learning, that blind subordination of the youth to one of greater age, influence the mind so that a man may not aspire to excel those who preceded him but must merely be content to go along with or march behind them. Stagnation forcibly results from this, and as he who devotes himself merely to copying divests himself of other qualities suited to his own nature, he naturally becomes sterile; ...
— The Indolence of the Filipino • Jose Rizal
... 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 ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... therefore more lasting. One finds readily enough contemporary statements to the effect that, "Although there are no nobles in America, there is a class of men denominated 'gentlemen,' who, by reason of their wealth, their talents, their education, their families, or the offices they hold, aspire to a preeminence," but, the same observer adds, this is something which "the people refuse to grant them." Another contemporary contributes the observation that there was not so much respect paid to gentlemen of rank ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... 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. One ...
— The Old English Baron • Clara Reeve
... have succeeded are so apt to tell new aspirants not to aspire, because the thing to be done may probably be beyond their reach. "My dear young lady, had you not better stay at home and darn your stockings?" "As, sir, you have asked for my candid opinion, I can only counsel you ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... it under the dominion of the spirit. For that, a far higher quality of thought and action than is here indicated is necessary. The economist can provide the daily bread, but that bread of the coming day which Christ wished his followers to aspire to must come otherwise. That should be the labor of the poets, artists, musicians, and of the heroic and aristocratic characters who provide by their life an image to which life can be modeled. Therefore I beseech audience not only of the churches, but of the poets, writers, and thinkers of Ireland ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... or skies Burned that fire within thine eyes? On what wings dared he aspire? What the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... 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
... 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 ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... Nations that aspire to be free incur a prominent danger,—the danger of deceiving themselves on the question of tyranny. They readily apply that name to any system of government that displeases or alarms them, or refuses to grant all that they desire. Frivolous caprices, ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... forth 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 ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... now. Genius, intellect, imagination, courage, pride, scorn, all the intensities of his nature, all that he supposed he possessed, all that lay hidden and unsuspected, arose in their might to overcome him now. He did not think, he did not aspire, or hope, or fear, or dream, or remember: he only felt, and bled, and moaned low, hopeless, helpless moans. If it is given to some natures to enjoy intensely, so such correspondingly suffer; and Bart, alone with ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... Renan says in his posthumous work, that there will always be materialists and spiritualists, inasmuch as it will always be observable on the one hand that there is no thought without brain, while, on the other hand, instincts of man will always aspire to higher beliefs. But this is just what ought to be if religion is true, and we are in a state of probation. And is it not probable that the materialistic position (discredited even by philosophy) is due simply to custom ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... and most difficult labor to which an artist can aspire, to this branch of art Hunt has chiefly confined himself, and from this point of view he must be studied. We do not forget, in saying this, his angel with the flaming torch, strong and beautiful and of unearthly presence, nor the shadowy, half-portrayed figures which dart and flit ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... 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, the ambition of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... us burns To see dark Ignorance aspire To move toward light a mind that yearns For knowledge that may lift it higher Upon the royal road of truth, While every word and act and thought Betrays an atmosphere so fraught With lack of common sense and ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... in municipal government. In the former the families reside for generations in the place of birth with increasing devotion to the town and all its surroundings. A father achieving the mayorship stimulates the son to aspire to it. That invaluable asset, city pride, is created, culminating in romantic attachment to native places. Councilorships are sought that each in his day and generation may be of some service to the town. ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... can't endure this silence another week; What shall I do in order to make you speak? Shall I give you a trope In the manner of Pope, Or hammer my brains like an old smith To get out something like Goldsmith? Or shall I aspire on To tune my poetic lyre on The same key touched by Byron, And laying my hand its wire on, With its music your soul set fire on By themes you ne'er could tire on? Or say, I pray, Would a lay Like Gay Be more in your way? I leave it to you, Which am I to ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of our country is not to be altogether commended—that all men should aspire to book-learning; there is not a simpler animal, and a more superfluous member of a state than a mere scholar, a self-pleasing student. Archimedes, though an excellent engineer, when Syracuse was lost, was found in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... John L., we suppose that "Handsome Jim" Corbett is the only old time champion who can at all aspire to Sullivan's place ...
— The Stars & Stripes, Vol 1, No 1, February 8, 1918, - The American Soldiers' Newspaper of World War I, 1918-1919 • American Expeditionary Forces
... such was the inveteracy of the Jesuits against the Quietists, that within the space of a month upwards of two hundred persons were put into the inquisition; and that method of devotion which had passed in Italy as the most elevated to which mortals could aspire, was deemed heretical, and the chief promoters of it confined ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to snuff then and began to clear a passage, kicking out to right and left and laughing when his victims protested. Before he had traversed fifty yards he had made himself more enemies than most men dare aspire to in a lifetime, and he seemed well pleased with the fruit ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Nor is this to be wondered at, when we consider the motive upon which those gentlemen do not deny their going to India. The fame of conquest, barbarous as that motive is, is but a secondary consideration: there are certain stations in wealth to which the warriors of the East aspire. It is there, indeed, where the wishes of their friends assign them eminence, where the question of their country is pointed at their return. When shall I see a commander return from India in the pride of honourable poverty? You describe the ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... of the Messiah, tore a woeful rent in the back of my best black silk gown, and damaged an egregious pair of breeches. Mem.—never tumbled from a church window during service. Adieu, dear ——! do not remember me to any body:—to forget and be forgotten by the people of Southwell is all I aspire to." ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... 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 these volumes during a century. In this manner, from the humble beginnings ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... River the road improves sufficiently to enable me to take an occasional, admiring glance at the Bavarian and Tyrolese Alps, towering cloudward on the southern horizon, their shadowy outlines scarcely distinguishable in the hazy distance from the fleecy clouds their peaks aspire to invade. While absentmindedly taking a more lingering look than is consistent with safety when picking one's way along the narrow edge of the roadway between the stone-strewn centre and the ditch, I run into the ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... passion ever speaks; and an ambition—the result of the highest tone of aristocratic influence upon society—prompted his desires to purposes and a position to which in other regions he is not often permitted to aspire. These influences were assisted by the peculiar location of our city—by its suburban freedom from all closeness; its innumerable gardens, the appanage of every household; its piazzas, verandahs, porches; its ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... with bonds to bind the morning light, As well on the four winds to spend your might, As well to strive against the streams that run; As well to bar the seasons, bid be done The rain which falls; as well to blindly fight Against the air, and at your folly's height Aspire to make all ...
— Selected Poems • William Francis Barnard
... if I meet with difficulty, I may not go backward, nor stand still, and fear to go forward. Unfold to me the depth and breadth of the ideal and beautiful, that I may not be content to succeed in the shallowness of life: but may I aspire to the height of the soul, even if I fail to ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... spoken rashly," said he; "only this request I would fain deny. I beg you to withdraw it. It is not a safe boon, nor one, my Phaeton, suited to your youth and strength. Your lot is mortal, and you ask what is beyond a mortal's power. In your ignorance you aspire to do that which not even the gods themselves may do. None but myself may drive the flaming car of day; not even Jupiter, whose terrible right arm hurls the thunder bolts. The first part of the way is steep, and such as the horses when fresh in the morning can hardly climb; the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... impatiently, and Aynesworth joined the outside of the circle of men who had gathered round Wingrave. He was answering their questions readily enough, if a little laconically. He was quite aware that he occupied in society the one unique place to which princes might not even aspire—there was something of divinity about his millions, something of awe in the tone of the men with whom he talked. Women pretended to be interested in him because of the romance of his suddenly acquired wealth—the men did not trouble to deceive themselves or anyone else. ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... memory is a valuable contribution to our stock of material for emotional resuscitation in after years. It also aids in adorning our style, even although we may not aspire to compose in poetry. But the burden of holding the connection of a long poem should be eschewed. Children can readily learn a short psalm or hymn, and can retain it in permanence; but to repeat the 119th psalm from the beginning ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... 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 ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... 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 place in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... haven't been idle—your newspaper and political friends, and Ormsby and I. You are ambitious; you want to succeed; and we have been laying the foundations for you. The next election would give you anything in the gift of the State that a man of your years could aspire to. ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... care; the vanity of earthly things startles us suddenly, like a new truth; the friends we love drop away from our side into silence; desire fails; the grasshopper becomes a burden; until, at length, we feel that our only love is not here below,—until these tendrils of earth aspire to a better climate, and the weight that has been laid upon us makes us stoop wearily to the grave as a rest and a deliverance. We have, even through our tears, admired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young to die; ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... principal newspapers, in a crowd of less important ones, La Epoca, Conservative and dynastic ranks first; this is the journal of the aristocrats, of the "upper ten thousand," or those who aspire to be so, and it ranks as the doyen of the whole Press. Its circulation is not so large as that of some of the other papers, but its clientele is supposed to be of the best. El Nacional is also Conservative, but belonging to the party of Romero Robledo. What the exact politics of that ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... 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
... What portent from the Gods is here? My mind is mazed with doubt and fear. How can I gainsay what I see? I know the girl Antigone, O hapless child of hapless sire! Didst thou, then, recklessly aspire To brave kings' laws, and now art brought ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... has existed, been the cause of freedom. If it is this principle, that has always prompted the princes and nobles of the earth, by every species of fraud and violence, to shake off all the limitations of their power; it is the same that has always stimulated the common people to aspire at independency, and to endeavour at confining the power of the great, within the limits ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... madness please; Our joys below it can improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound. When the full organ joins the tuneful quire, Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear; Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire, While solemn airs improve the sacred fire; And angels lean from Heav'n to hear. Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is given; His numbers rais'd a shade from Hell, Hers lift the soul ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... different boxes. The whole frame-work of society, both in Europe and America, is made up of various things which will not stand the scrutiny of any very ideal standard of morality. It's pretty generally understood that men don't aspire after the absolute right, but only to do about as well as the rest of the world. Now, when any one speaks up, like a man, and says slavery is necessary to us, we can't get along without it, we should be beggared if we give it up, and, of course, we ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hie reuolue, Past hope, past thought, past reach of all aspire, Once more to moue him flie he doth resolue, And to that purpose tips his tongue with fier; Fier of sweete words, that easelie might dissolue And moisten flint, though steeld in stiffe attire, Had not desier of wonder praise, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... and of spoiling the pleasure of the most agreeable society. Neither the choice of his friends nor that of the dishes was made by vanity; for in everything he preferred the substance to the shadow; and by these means he procured that real respect to which he did not aspire. ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... in me, and from thee good alone,—from myself and my own corrupted will all evil, and the consequences of evil,—with inward prostration of will, mind, and affections I adore thy infinite majesty; I aspire ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... the earth minister those things which appertain to the Lord's priestly character, 308. What is the nature of ecclesiastical self-love, 264. They aspire to be gods, so far as ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... welcome her friend, none to be chilled 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 ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... trying to imagine, Burrell, how I should feel if you, I, and baby were coloured; I was trying to place myself in such a situation. Now we know that our boy, if he is honest and upright—is blest with great talent or genius—may aspire to any station in society that he wishes to obtain. How different it would be if he were coloured!—there would be nothing bright in the prospective for him. We could hardly promise him a living at any respectable calling. I think, George, we treat coloured people with ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... a certain monarch of the series died, leaving two children, Numitor and Amulius. Numitor was the eldest son, and as such entitled to succeed his father. But he was of a quiet and somewhat inefficient disposition, while his younger brother was ardent and ambitious, and very likely to aspire to the possession of power. The father, it seems, anticipated the possibility of dissension between his sons after his death, and in order to do all in his power to guard against it, he endeavored to arrange and settle the succession ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... 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 British ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... prince of Grenada, heir to the Spanish throne, imprisoned by order of the Crown for fear he would aspire to the throne, was kept in solitary confinement in the old prison at the Palace of Skulls, Madrid. After thirty-three years in this living tomb, death came to his release, and the following remarkable researches, taken from the Bible, and marked with an old nail on the rough walls of ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... 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 ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Nino: "that I shall not desist from desiring the honour of marrying your daughter, if you refuse me a hundred times. I wish to put it to you whether with youth, some talent,—I speak modestly,—and the prospect of a plentiful income, I am not as well qualified to aspire to the alliance as Baron Benoni, who has old age, much talent, an enormous fortune, and the benefit of the ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... Many readers have called my attention to local and American survivals of words and meanings described as obsolete. This is a subject on which a great deal could be written, but it lies outside the plan of this book, which does not aspire to do more than furnish some instruction or entertainment to those who are interested in the curiosities ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... 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 on the poor and the rich; where the collision ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... that was to press!), Mouse-Ear and Yarrow, Shepherd's Purse, Buttercups, and full-blown Dandelion, Succory, and Chickweed, and Gill-run-over-the-ground,—with their homeliest names written in sprawling characters, all down hill, beneath them. I did not aspire to botanical names in those days. I thought nothing was unfit for my new Herbarium. Such was my zeal, that I believe I should have filled it entirely in a few days, if I had not been counselled to make a judicious selection. I had a faculty for bringing home plants impossible to press, and insisting ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... they are of so unworthy a description as has clearly been made appear in the preceding narrative. That a river justly termed the Nile of New South Wales should fall into such hands is to be lamented. In process of time, however, their productive farms will have yielded them all that they aspire to, and may then fall into the possession of persons who will look beyond the mere gratification of the moment, and cause the settlements in New South Wales to stand as high in the public estimation as any colonies ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... and Boast of a false Gift. He would have us moreover to Thirst after Applause among others that may see Our Excellencies! and be impatient if we are not accounted some-body. He would have us furthermore, to aspire after such a Figure, as God has never yet seen fitting for us; and croud into some High Chair that becomes us not. Thus would the Devil Elevate us into the Air, above our Neighbours; and why so? 'Tis that we may be punished with such Falls, as may make us cry ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... 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 ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... using it as a stepping-stone to preferment rather than as a route to Nirvana. Official posts being practically monopolized by the aristocratic classes, those born in lowlier families found little opportunity to win honour and emoluments. But by embracing a religious career, a man might aspire to become an abbot or even a tutor to a prince or sovereign. Thus, learned and clever youths flocked to the portals of the priesthood, and the Emperor Saga is said to have lamented that the Court ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... time and of ours have thought of Byron, how he "strikes" them; but unless we are ourselves saturated with his thought and style, unless we learn to breathe his atmosphere by reading the books which he read, picturing to ourselves the scenes which he saw,—unless we aspire to his ideals and suffer his limitations, we are in no way entitled to judge his poems, whether they be good ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... 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 Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... 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, ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... industrial opportunity for those who believe themselves possessed of exceptional talent and aspire "to rise." ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... West, whose rivers are shallow and uncertain, the steamers are 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 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... Childhood is too buoyant, fresh, and free for such indulgences. Early youth—when its passions are developing, when the soul's bubbling springs are opening fresh and warm, when young hopes put out, to be blighted with a shade, young loves come to be disappointed with a frown, young desires aspire to be saddened with the first failure—is the season when the seeds of disquiet and unhappiness are sown in the soul. And in the most gifted and sensitive souls these seeds are oftenest sown. Those of highly poetic temperaments, of delicate and ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... 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 go beyond those ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lodgings to be prepared for these ladies, and he made them great and hearty cheer, without showing particular affection to any one. Indeed, unless Parliament prays him to take another wife, he will not I think be in a hurry to marry; besides, few if any ladies now at Court would aspire to such an honour, for a law has just been passed, that should any King henceforth wish to marry a subject, the lady will be bound on, pain of death to declare if any charges of misconduct can be ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... barrister of Saintes, and was the leading lawyer in his town about 1833. This led him to aspire to legislative honours. M. Dufaure arrived in the Chamber with a provincial and cold-in-the-nose accent that was very queer. But he possessed a mind so clear that occasionally it was almost luminous, and so accurate that occasionally it ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... seemed less hedged about by sabbatical restrictions. Not that she wished her family to be of the questionable sort that went to El Campo or Shell Mound Park for Sunday picnics and returned in quarrelsome state at a late hour smelling of bad whisky and worse gin. Nor did she aspire to have sprung from the Teutonic stock that perpetrated more respectable but equally noisy outings in the vicinity of Woodward's Gardens. But she had a furtive and sly desire to float oil-like upon the surface of this turbid ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... But the intrigues, the intrigues!" I saw her little hand clenched on the closed fan. There were no bounds to his audacity. He wasted their wealth. "The audacity!" He had overawed her father's mind; he claimed descent from his Irish kings, he who——— "Senor, my English cousin, he even dares aspire to my person." ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... thou worthiest, best of men Particulo, for whom my pen Immortal honour will insure, Long as a rev'rence shall endure For Roman learning—if this strain Cannot your approbation gain, Yet, yet my brevity admire, Which may the more to praise aspire, The more our poets now-a-days Are tedious ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... saying that a man does not talk about his own sister. When he had declared, with so much affectionate admiration for his friend's prowess, that he might aspire to the hand of any lady, that one retiring, modest-browed girl had not been thought of by him. A man in talking to another man about women is always supposed to consider those belonging to himself as exempt from the incidents of the conversation. The dearest friends do not talk to each other ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... professor and his pupils preparing for their degree. For me, the outsider, to enter that tabernacle with my band of young imps would be most unseemly; the rightful occupant would never think of allowing it. I feel it myself: elementary teaching dare not aspire to such familiarity with the higher culture. Very well, we will not go there, so long as they will lend ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... benefactors who have raised us from the ground, Even as were raised from brutal dust our countrymen around; Now ignorance shall furl her wing, and while our hopes aspire, To all her native darkness she must in despair retire. Each nook will have its scholar craft, and high in learning's scale Will mount the inspirations of the language of ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... navigation, with the favour of God, by shorter routes. I offer much, well do I see it, but I trust in almighty God with whose favour, I believe I can do what I say in your royal service. The talent which God has given me leads me to aspire to the accomplishment of these achievements, and does not demand of me a strict account, and I believe that I shall comply with what will be required, for never did I so wish to achieve anything. Your Majesty ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... imagination, which is generally somewhat worse; for if he knew how to imagine well or in a masterly manner in his fantasy, he could not have a hand so corrupt as not to show some part or indication of his good will. But no one has ever known how to aspire well in this science, except the mind which understands what good work is, and what he can make of it. It is a serious thing, this distance and difference which exist between the high and the low ...
— Michael Angelo Buonarroti • Charles Holroyd
... public for anecdote has been censured and ridiculed by critics who aspire to the character of superior wisdom; but if we consider it in a proper point of view, this taste is an incontestable proof of the good sense and profoundly philosophic temper of the present times. Of the numbers who ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... impossible—left their son free to choose his own career; he might be a notary in Paris, king's-attorney in some district, collector of customs no matter where, broker, or post master, as he pleased. What fancy of his could they ever refuse him? to what position of life might he not aspire as the son of a man about whom the whole countryside, from Montargis to Essonne, was in the habit of saying, "Pere Minoret doesn't even know how rich ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... beautiful woman, a noble woman, a wealthy woman. With her as his wife, love, riches, power might all be his. What more could the warm, warm feelings of youth desire? what more could the ambitions of youth aspire to? Yesterday, it is true, he had felt some rising of that noble pride which scorns to receive so much and give so little. He had formed a wild, almost passionate determination to obtain his brief before he obtained his bride, but Mr. Harman had soothed ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... 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 ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... with them to the house and opened the wrought-iron gate that guarded the entrance, and the massive front door. Honora had a sense of unreality as they entered, and told herself it was obviously ridiculous that she should aspire to such a dwelling. Yesterday, under the spell of that somewhat adventurous excursion with Mr. Cuthbert, she had pictured herself as installed. He had contrived somehow to give her a sense of intimacy with the people who lived ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the states of mind caused by him in the household, was the evoker of flutters in yet another female breast. The girl, Molly, had read toilsomely through "Pamela," and saw no reason why an equally attractive housemaid should not aspire to an equally high destiny on this side of the ocean. But, often as she artfully contrived that the black boy should forget some part of the guest's dinner, and timely as she planned her own visits with the missing portion, she found the officer heedless of her smiles, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... my lord," said Varney—"that is, in the case supposed, if such be her disposition; since you think you cannot aspire to become her husband. Her favourite you are, and may remain, if the lady at Cumnor place ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... ourselves that at such and such a time and in such and such circumstances nature does not ask our leave; that we have got to take her as she is and not fashion her to suit our fancy, and if we really aspire to formulas and tables of rules, and well, even ... to the chemical retort, there's no help for it, we must accept the retort too, or else it will be accepted ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... you will not leave this field without pastors, where the gospel is being received as the greatest benefit to which the people can aspire for ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... unbought justice. It was the transition from an order of things in which everything belonged to individuals, to another in which everything was to belong to the nation. That night changed the face of the kingdom; it made all Frenchmen equal; all might now obtain public employments; aspire to the idea of property of their own, of exercising industry for their own benefit. That night was a revolution as important as the insurrection of the 14th of July, of which it was the consequence. It made the people masters of society, as the ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet |
