"Ambitious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... McDuffie: "We have lived under the present order of things for fifty years, and can continue to live under it for one thousand years to come, if the people of the South are but content to stand upon their rights as guaranteed in the Constitution, and not work confusion by listening to ambitious politicians: by taking as much pains to preserve a good understanding with our Northern brethren, the vast majority of whom are inclined to respect ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... and all the ambitious views which it opened, to each of the Miss Berrys successively, but they refused to bear his name, though they still cheered his solitude: and, strange to say, two of the most admired and beloved women of their time ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... abundant for the history of American industry in the last fifty years. They exist largely in the form of official documents. Any one ambitious of studying this subject in great detail should consult, first of all, the catalogs issued by that very valuable institution, the Government Printing Office. The Bureau of Corporations has published elaborate reports on such industries as petroleum ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... recorded indicate very clearly the position of our personages. Fearing to lose both the well-beloved cat and the advantages she was ambitious to obtain, Mother Michel redoubled her ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire
... her beautiful bright eyes filled with tears. She took leave of her most cherished and ambitious dream—bade farewell to her future of ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... how I can win my way into such rooms as you've just talked about. Nothing less will make me look up. I'd like to sleep in one to-night. In the best bedroom, sir. I'm ambitious; ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... these circumstances it was believed that any revolution in Mexico founded upon opposition to the ambitious projects of Paredes would tend to promote the cause of peace as well as prevent any attempted European interference in the affairs of the North American continent, both objects of deep interest to the United States. Any such foreign ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Polk • James Polk
... a boy in my 'teens, I had a lasting series of object lessons on the cat as a predatory animal. Our "Betty" was the most ambitious and successful domestic-cat hunter of wild mammals of which I ever have heard. To her, rats and mice were mere child's-play, and after a time their pursuit offered such tame sport that she sought fresh fields ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... street for a comfortable beer place, and after passing dime-museums, unearthly looking dives, amateur breweries, low gin mills and ambitious establishments, the pair paused opposite a green, shy park of grass and dwarf ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... a place to live in here among you. His name is Matthias Jones, and he is faithful though slow, but the constant dropping, you know, wears a stone. I like the old man, and you would, for he is honest and ambitious. He might have owned a farm himself if the evil of slavery had not crushed under its foot the seeds of growth that lay within him. Mr. Dutton has ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... little ambitious," he ventured. "I do not wish to take my place amongst the rank and file. I want to be something different to you in life—more than any one else. If affection and devotion count, I shall earn ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... recognition, to yearn to impress one's personality upon one's fellow-men, is the essence of ambition. The ambitious person may think that he merely thirsts to "do something" or "be somebody" but really what he craves is to figure potently in the minds of others, to be greatly loved, admired, or feared. To reap a success which no one .................. ...
— Stanford Achievement Test, Ed. 1922 - Advanced Examination, Form A, for Grades 4-8 • Truman L. Kelley
... establish the Catholic faith among a numerous heathen people, submerged in the obscure darkness of paganism, and to extend the dominion of the King, our Lord, and protect this peninsula from the ambitious views of foreign nations." From the first it was his intention that the Cross and the flag of Spain should be carried side by side in the task of dominating and colonizing the new country. Having, therefore, gathered his forces together at Santa Ana, near La Paz, he sent thence to Loreto, ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... after that he haunted the State Legislature for five or six winters in hot pursuit of another place, but his claims failing to be recognized, he relapsed into the natural belief that his party was in league to proscribe him. After making a large number of political ventures of a more ambitious order, and with the same mortifying results, he abandoned that field and took to speculation in patent rights. He vended a wonderful churn-dash, circulated a marvellous flatiron, and expatiated through the country on the latest improvement in the line of a washing machine. But these operations somehow ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... to undertake only what can be easily handled or what can be done thoroughly. There is joy in the contemplation of a perfect work, even though it be on a small scale, that never comes from a more ambitious undertaking imperfectly carried out. Better six square feet of well tilled, weedless, thrifty garden than an acre poorly cultivated and full ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... Francis Galton says: "We know, and may guess something more, of the reason why this marvellously gifted race declined. Social morality grew exceedingly lax; marriage became unfashionable and was avoided; many of the more ambitious and accomplished women were avowed courtesans, and consequently infertile; and the mothers of the incoming population were of a heterogeneous class."[38] What was it that made the Egyptian civilization one of the longest-lived of ancient civilizations? Was it not, as we now find by ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... Abbe Bernier, a man of great energy and intellect, with a commanding person, ready pen, and a splendid voice; but who was altogether without principle, and threw himself into the cause for purely selfish and ambitious motives. ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... exertions, and the annoyances to which he has subjected himself during the best period of his existence, form the whole of his sacrifices. But, alas! it too often happens that, encouraged by the probability of succeeding in a few years to an independent property, and ambitious, moreover, of making such an appearance in society as will afford the old gentleman or lady no excuse for being ashamed of their connexion with him, he launches into expenses he would never otherwise have dreamed of incurring, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... "I am working for men unborn. I am ambitious; but my ambition is to connect my name honourably with the first great house built for a negro general. My ambition is to build here a rival to the palaces ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... about it. James Leigh's change of life, manner, and habits dated from the dreaded night when he saw with his own eyes the ghastly figure of what he believed to be a murdered man. From being a roving, reckless, devil-may-care sailor, he settled into a steady, ambitious, capable man. He married a Welsh girl after his own heart, and forgot all about the daughter of the old Spaniard, who, if subsequent accounts were correct, pined for his return to Chili. Mrs. Leigh ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... large and ambitious apartment, now becoming clouded with shades, out of which the white and cadaverous countenances of his studies, casts, and other lumber peered meditatively at him, as if they were saying, 'What are you going to do now, old boy?' They had never looked like that ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... purpose was unknown, gave a universal alarm to the English nation; as, though he had not declared that intention, yet it appeared evident that he was taking measures to seize the crown of England. Pope Sixtus V. not less ambitious than himself, and equally desirous of persecuting the protestants, urged him to the enterprise. He excommunicated the queen, and published a crusade against her, with the usual indulgences. All the ports of Spain resounded with ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... wrinkled. A kind of ambitious glory which had lighted his face was extinguished, like the light of glow-worms we crush beneath the grass. "Then you say," resumed the deceived intendant, "that the initiative came from the people? ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... two plays of 'Henry IV' had figured as a spirited young man in 'Richard II;' he was now represented as weighed down by care and age. With him are contrasted (in part i.) his impetuous and ambitious subject Hotspur and (in both parts) his son and heir Prince Hal, whose boisterous disposition drives him from Court to seek adventures among the haunters of taverns. Hotspur is a vivid and fascinating portrait of a hot-headed soldier, courageous to the point of rashness, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... was a thrifty, well-to-do man, anxious to give his children greater advantages than he had enjoyed, and to improve the fine place of which he was justly proud. Mrs. Grant was a notable housewife, as ambitious and industrious as her husband, but too busy to spend any time on the elegancies of life, though always ready to help the poor and sick like a good neighbor and Christian woman. The three sons—Tom, Dick, and Harry—were big fellows of seventeen, nineteen, ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... The more ambitious members of the caste abjure all flesh and liquor, and wear the sacred thread. These will not take cooked food even from a Brahman. Others do not observe these restrictions. Brahmans will usually take water from Sunars, especially from those who wear the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... stove in the middle, set in a long shallow box of sand, for the benefit of the "spitters," a bar across one end—a mere counter with a sliding glass-case behind it containing a few bottles having ambitious labels, and a wash-sink in one corner. On the walls were the bright yellow and black handbills of a traveling circus, with pictures of acrobats in human pyramids, horses flying in long leaps through the air, and sylph-like ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 4. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... was grim and cheerless. He sang on the streets, and held out a ragged cap for pennies. His fine, sweet voice caught the ear of a priest, and the boy's services were used at the altar. The lad was alert, active, intelligent, ambitious. Very naturally he was educated for the priesthood. He became a monk, and evolved into a preacher of worth ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... conquered the Baltic provinces, and all the way from Poland to Finland the coast was inaccessible to the interior of Russia. Sweden was still esteemed a great Power; and although it was not yet discovered, the new king was, what Peter never became, a capable and ambitious commander. The main argument of Peter's reign was the struggle for ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... darling as one which would have been an additional honour to the lord-lieutenant of the county; but as he had not the pleasure of his lordship's acquaintance, he selected the person of most consequence amongst those whom he did know; not any very ambitious appointment, in those days of comparative prosperity; but certainly the flourishing maltster of Skelton was a little surprised, when, fifteen years later, he learnt that he was executor to a will bequeathing many vanished hundreds of pounds, and guardian ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterward the very engines which had lifted them ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... of God behold the wicked prospering and the just oppressed; when they see the ambitious, the covetous, the unscrupulous preferred and honored, and they themselves plotted against and rejected, their heart is not disturbed, because they know first of all that "to them that love God, all things work together unto good,"(110) and secondly, they ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... being alluvial, is in most cases easy to dig, and when the bed rock is reached it becomes an open question whether to go deeper into the decomposed rock or to be content with what supply has been struck. Many a good soak has been ruined by a too ambitious worker, who, after infinite toil, may see his priceless fluid disappear down some hidden crack beneath. Native soaks dug out with sticks and wooden "coolimans"—small troughs used as spades or as a means of carrying seeds, water, or game—are ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... and ambitious. But if he was glad to gain glory for himself he considered the good of his people also. To unite them and overpower the palefaces was the end toward which ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... style of book, sunshiny with smiles on one page while the next is misty with tender tears. Almost every type of American school-girl is here represented—the vain Helen Dart, the beauty, Amy Searle, the ambitious, high bred, conservative Anna Matson; but next to Kitty herself sunny little Pauline Sedgewick will prove the general favorite. It is a story fully calculated to win both girls and boys toward noble, royal ways of doing little as well as great things. All teachers should feel ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... notable triumph of an assured reelection to the Senate and the congratulations of his enthusiastic friends to sustain and refresh him. Being an indefatigable worker, he was already organizing a new and more ambitious effort. Three weeks after election he started on a brief tour to the Southern States, making speeches at Memphis and New Orleans, of which further mention will be made in the next chapter. Perhaps he deemed it wise not to proceed immediately ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... an under-secretary—an agreeable and ambitious man, who had been very much in her train during the preceding winter, and until Roger Barnes appeared upon ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... life for its disgusting manifestations, for the triviality of Lindsay, for the fleshy Porter with his finger in the stock market, for the ambitious Carson who would better have rested in his father's dugout in Iowa. They were a part of the travailing world, without which it could not fulfil its appointed destiny. It was childish to dislike them; with this God-given ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... may be urged against the historical methods now in vogue. What, you will ask, is offered in their stead? That which I offer is the view of the ethnologist. It is not so ambitious as some I have named. It does not deal in eternal laws, nor divine the distant future. The ethnologist does not profess to have been admitted into the counsels of the Almighty, nor to have caught in his grasp the secret purposes of the Universe. He seeks ...
— An Ethnologist's View of History • Daniel G. Brinton
... their services to the heir apparent, and of causing them to take a solemn oath to keep their engagements. No other indications of warlike talent, however, have been preserved concerning him. "He was crafty, ambitious, cruel, violent," says the envoy Suriano, "a hater of buffoons, a lover of soldiers." His natural cruelty seems to have been remarkable from his boyhood. After his return from the chase, he was in ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... outlook upon life which was a survival from his hard-working past—would willingly have dodged, but Mrs. Weatherford was inexorable. There were two grown daughters and a growing son, and it was for these that she was socially ambitious. ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... opposite of Mr. Lincoln—and he was charmed with everything she said and did. Judge Douglas was one of her numerous admirers, and it is said that the Louisville belle was so flattered by his attentions that she was in doubt, for a time, which suitor to accept. She was an ambitious young woman, having boasted from girlhood that she would one day be mistress of ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... too ambitious of court favor, sacrificing his time in attendance on levees, his repose, his liberty, his virtue, and perhaps his friends, to attain it, I have said to myself, This man gives too much ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... you know, just beginning to be heard of as an advocate. He was at his first convention, eager to have his say, hard to keep silent; and he was asked to second the nomination of Reed, a boyish-looking chap of twenty-six. He didn't know Reed from Adam, but he was ambitious to be heard just then—and he'd have spoken for the devil if they'd have given him a chance. Well, he launched out on his speech in fine style. He began with Noah—as they all did in those days—glided ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... Roscoe," said the principal; "this company of ambitious, aspiring students, all pressing forward eagerly in ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... much obliged by your good wishes "and reciprocate them with sincerity, assuring the "fraternity of my esteem, I request them to believe "that I shall always be ambitious of being considered ...
— Washington's Masonic Correspondence - As Found among the Washington Papers in the Library of Congress • Julius F. Sachse
... Martha had been so sure that Sallie would write to them some day; Sallie, their handsome, wilful daughter, who had passed out of their lives nearly fifteen years before. He never blamed Sallie for wanting to leave them; what could a tiny village like this offer to one as clever, as pretty, as ambitious as Sallie had been? The neighbors had said many unkind things of Sallie but he heeded them not. They had called her vain, idle and silly; they said the folks at the big house had spoiled her and put notions into ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... Staunton the reinforcing troops, the greater number of whom saw him for the first time, shouted for him and woke the echoes. Grave and unsmiling, he lifted the forage cap, touched Little Sorrel with the spur and went on by. It is not to be doubted that he was ambitious, and it lies not in ambitious man, no, nor in man of any type, to feel no joy in such a cry of recognition! If he felt it, however, he did not evince it. He only jerked his hand into the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... she cried suddenly and impatiently. "People call you ambitious, and yet you have to be driven by force to the simplest move in the game, and all the while you are thinking and talking as if a day's sport were ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... abandon their uniform routine of toil: the answer to this is—try them. They have adopted the means at their command in other countries. Mr Davis, an American gentleman, gave the select committee an animated view of the ambitious workmen of the New England states, where, he said, 'nobody is contented with his present condition—everybody is struggling for something better.' Now, to be discontented with one's condition, in the shape of folding the arms, and abusing the fate that has not sent chance ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... she began, as the carryall, mounting the hill, turned into Monument Avenue, where numbers of new houses had been built of late years, Queen Anne cottages in brick and stone, timber, and concrete, with here and there a more ambitious "villa" of pink granite, all surrounded with lawns and rosaries and vine-hung verandas and tinkling fountains. "In the first place I wish to learn where all these people and houses come from. I was told that you lived in a lodge in the wilderness, ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge
... and dependent upon others for their amusement, disillusioned men, lazy men, socially ambitious men, men gluttonously or alcoholically predisposed haunted these clubs. To one of them repaired those who were inclined to racquettes, squash, tennis, and the swimming tank. It was a sort of social ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... song. Fastidious, or else listless, or perhaps Aware of nothing arduous in a task They never undertook, they little note His dangers or escapes, and haply find There least amusement where he found the most. But is amusement all? studious of song And yet ambitious not to sing in vain, I would not trifle merely, though the world Be loudest in their praise who do no more. Yet what can satire, whether grave or gay? It may correct a foible, may chastise The freaks of fashion, regulate the dress, Retrench a sword-blade, or displace ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... got to do that," was the thoughtful answer. "And you know I believe he'll do it. McClellan's on his mettle now. His army will fight like tigers to show their faith in him. He's vain and ambitious, yes—many great men are. ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... seeming to wear an ominous significance. Her eyes had a swollen look, such as attends much weeping, which afterwards I took as proof that she knew for what purpose she was going, and was moved to bitter grief at the act to which her ambitious family was ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... surmounted by an extravagant collar and a Paris hat. The dress was of artistic intention inexpensively carried out, the hat had an accomplished chic; it had fallen to her in the wreck and ruin of a too ambitious draper of Coolgardie. As a matter of fact it was the only one she had. The wide sleeves ended a little below the elbow, and she carried in compensation a pair of long suede gloves, a compromise which only occasionally discovered itself buttonless, ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... built one's nest upon the ground, and if one comes of a race of ground-builders, it is a risky experiment to build in a tree. The conditions are vastly different. One of my near neighbors, a little song sparrow, learned this lesson the past season. She grew ambitious; she departed from the traditions of her race, and placed her nest in a tree. Such a pretty spot she chose, too,—the pendent cradle formed by the interlaced sprays of two parallel branches of a Norway spruce. These branches shoot out almost horizontally; ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... millions of Asiatics with which he meant to bring Europe to his feet. On the other side of that narrow strait lay Greece and Rome, the centers from which issued the learning, the commerce and the armies which governed the world. Could his heart, so ambitious for the glory of Christ, fail to be fired with the desire to cast himself upon these strongholds, or could he doubt that the Spirit was leading him forward to this enterprise? He knew that Greece, with all her wisdom, lacked that knowledge which makes wise unto salvation, and that the Romans, though ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... and ambitious and every way unprincipled. Joseph, however, seemed to be an exception; but he had been gone many years, and the probability was that he was dead. As sometimes now in a house you will find kept at the table a vacant chair, a plate, a knife, a fork, for some deceased member of the family, ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... he became physically incapable of doing it. Whatever Mill undertook he accomplished, often in the face of enormous difficulties. Coleridge never finished anything, and his works are a heap of fragments of the prolegomena to ambitious schemes. Mill worked his hardest from youth to age, never sparing labour or shirking difficulties or turning aside from his path. Coleridge dawdled through life, solacing himself with opium, and could only be coaxed into occasional activity by skilful diplomacy. Mill preserved his independence ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... necessity by which he might consider himself bound to put forward an original policy, made reflecting politicians regard his appointment with distrust. He appears to have exhibited a wish to serve some members of the Grenville family, though not in the required direction. Mr. Charles Williams Wynn was ambitious of filling the distant but lucrative post to which the new Foreign Secretary had been appointed before Lord Londonderry's death, but Mr. Canning suggested a position scarcely less honourable at home. How these and other ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... was finished now, and nearly ready for its occupants; Bill, Sarah and the baby had been installed for some time in a neat little two-roomed place with a side verandah, a short distance from the main building. Home-made furniture, even more ambitious than the first built, had been erected, and a fresh supply of household goods bought during an exciting week in Melbourne, where Mr. Linton had taken them all—all, that is, but Bob, who had steadfastly declined to go away and play when other people were helping him. So Bob had remained ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Extinguish'd majesty so far, that nought Shines here to give an awe of one above thee? When the great Moorish king, Abdallah, fell, Fell by thy hand accurs'd, I fought fast by him, His son, though, through his fondness, in disguise, Less to expose me to th' ambitious foe.— Ha! does it wake thee?—O'er my father's corse I stood astride till I had clove thy crest; And then was made the captive of a squadron, And sunk into thy servant—But, oh! what, What were my wages? Hear not heaven, ...
— The Revenge - A Tragedy • Edward Young
... in the spring of his thirty-fifth year that father married my mother, then a country school-teacher, and in the following spring I came wriggling and crying into the world. Something happened to the two people. They became ambitious. The American passion for getting up in the world took possession ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... needed as an introduction to a work of far more ambitious character, than any which I have before attempted. In venturing to select a subject from the history of Rome, during its earlier ages, undeterred by the failure or, at the best, partial success of writers far more eminent than I can ever ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... -Not quite so ambitious as that, sir. I should like to put my eyes on the individual entitled to that name! A society may call itself an Entomological Society, but the man who arrogates such a broad title as that to himself, in the present state of science, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... up. I was with him from my tenth to my twentieth year, and then broke adrift to see fashions. We all do that, you know, Mr. Mulford, when we are young and ambitious, and my turn came as well ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... broke forth; Earl Warwick summoned his retainers, myself amongst them, since I lived upon his land; I sought the great earl, and I told him boldly—him whom the Commons deemed a friend, and a foe to all malfaisance and abuse—I told him that the war he asked me to join seemed to me but a war of ambitious lords, and that I saw not how the Commons were to be bettered, let who would be king. The earl listened and deigned to reason; and when he saw I was not convinced, he left me to my will; for he is a noble chief, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... books. Wayward, as it seems, almost from his earliest years, and manifesting no sympathy with the ordinary pastimes of children, he was regarded for a time as deficient in intellect. But he was even then ambitious of distinction. His sister relates that on being asked what device he would like painted on a bowl that was to be his, he replied, "Paint me an angel, with wings, and a trumpet, to trumpet my name ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... true greatness appears most wonderful. For that a prince in the midst of his courtiers, all ready to compliment him with his favourite character or title, and indeed with everything else, or that a conqueror, at the head of a hundred thousand men, all prepared to execute his will, how ambitious, wanton, or cruel soever, should, in the giddiness of their pride, elevate themselves many degrees above those their tools, seems not difficult to be imagined, or indeed accounted for. But that a man in chains, in prison, nay, in the vilest dungeon, should, with persevering pride and ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... so ambitious," Philip assured her with mild resentment, "you'd have seen me at breakfast. I arrived at Sherrill's last night. As it is, I've been sitting here an hour or so watching you swap wildwood yarns with the aborigine yonder. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Noui hominum tanquam te, His humour is lofty, his discourse peremptorie: his tongue filed, his eye ambitious, his gate maiesticall, and his generall behauiour vaine, ridiculous, and thrasonicall. He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odde, as it were, too peregrinat, as ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... the strongest and oldest of her assistants, she wound the great tall white columns with these strips, fastening them in huge spirals from top to bottom, black and white entwined. Then she hung ample festoons between the pillars, and contrived something painfully ambitious in the way of rosettes ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... its people. Nowadays there are no Hessians or Wuertembergers, not even Saxons or Bavarians, but all are Germans, and for one photograph of the Grand Duke of Hesse and his Duchess you will see here one hundred of "Unser Kaiser" and "Unsere Kaiserin." They have become Imperialists, and the ambitious spirit which animates them is shown by the act of a soldier at Liege who chalked up on a wall: "Kaiser Wilhelm the Second, ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... all, whether gifted or not. But the particular aim must vary with the individual. Probably with five girls out of ten the particular aim is to have a happy home. Once we might have said nine girls out of ten, but the present tendency of thought is to make girls ambitious,—too ambitious, it sometimes seems, for ...
— Girls and Women • Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester}
... comfortable did they find themselves in the palace of this munificent patron, that they remained nearly four years with him, faring sumptuously, and having an almost unlimited command of his money. The Count was more ambitious than avaricious: he had wealth enough, and did not care for the philosopher's stone on account of the gold, but of the length of days it would bring him. They had their predictions, accordingly, all ready framed to suit his character. They prophesied that he should be chosen King of Poland; and promised, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... mines at Idria in Carniola amalgamated for the purpose of {529} enhancing the price of quicksilver, the attempt broke down by reason of the Spanish mines. Accordingly, one Ambrose Hoechstetter of Augsburg [Sidenote: 1528] conceived the ambitious project of cornering the whole supply of the world. As has happened so often since, the higher price brought forth a much larger quantity of the article than had been reckoned with, the so-called "invisible supply"; the corner broke down and Hoechstetter failed ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... present wage-rate makes decent homes impossible; and though Brooklyn and Boston have a few model tenement-houses, New York has none, the experiment of making over in part a few old ones hardly counting save in intention. Into these homes respectable, ambitious, hard-working girls and women are compelled to go. That they live decent lives speaks worlds for the intrinsic goodness and purity of nature which in the midst of conditions intolerable to every sense still preserves these characteristics. That they must live in such surroundings is ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... pray you, did cast the angels out of heaven, down to the lowest hell, to be reserved in chains for everlasting darkness? I do not conceive what their natures so abstracted from all sensual lusts could be capable of, but this spiritual darkness and madness of self conceit, and an ambitious aspiring after more wisdom, whence did flow that malcontent and envious humour, in maligning the happiness of man. And this was the poison that Satan, the chief of these angels, did drop into man's nature, by temptations and suggestions of an imaginary ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... from his military and literary discipline. There is for example, a moment when he dines well, "no more wisely than was desirable, no less wisely than was excusable." It must be added that the accompanying sketches are, if not of an ambitious order, yet of a certain merit. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... influence, due as much to his ready tact, invariable courtesy, and lavish, generous hospitality, as to the skill and dashing prowess which made him the most renowned Indian fighter of the Southwest. He had an eager, impetuous nature, and was very ambitious, being almost as fond of popularity as of Indian-fighting.[22] He was already married, and the father of two children, when he came to the Watauga, and, like Robertson, was seeking a new and better home for his ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the art of writing such pleasing little poems should be now so generally neglected in favour of more ambitious compositions. Whatever brevity may be as regards wit it is certainly the soul ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... Aravisci; the language, institutions, and manners of both being still the same, is a matter of uncertainty; for, in their pristine state of equal indigence and equal liberty, the same advantages and disadvantages were common to both sides of the river. The Treveri [155] and Nervii [156] are ambitious of being thought of German origin; as if the reputation of this descent would distinguish them from the Gauls, whom they resemble in person and effeminacy. The Vangiones, Triboci, and Nemetes, [157] who inhabit the bank of the Rhine, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... white man or woman knows that it's the rottenest show on earth. We don't stand for all that sort of thing out there. They accept folks for what they are worth—I mean, if a person is decent, law-abiding, cheerful and ambitious, the door of the Premier, squatter and merchant is ...
— The Kangaroo Marines • R. W. Campbell
... little girl, but was rattled off as quick as a wink, to Miss Preston's great amusement, for the child was an ambitious little body who hated to be outdone by the ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... thinks of his hot throbbing feet. Shooting fires dart through his unhappy extremities, yet he smiles on and bears his pain for his daughters' sake. But the elderly hero cannot be compared with the ambitious exquisite of the Southern Seas, and we shall prove this hypothesis. The careless voyager throws a beer-bottle overboard, and that bottle drifts to the glad shore of a glittering isle; the overjoyed savage bounds on the prize, and proceeds to announce his good fortune to his bosom friend. ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... colour slowly fades out of them. She has been called an artist in mesalliances, a mismatch-maker of dangerous cunning, a dangler of picturesque beggar-maids before romantic-eyed Cophetuas, a daring promoter of ambitious American girls and a champion of musical comedy peeresses. Her house has been named the Junior Bachelors Club. The charming young men who seem to be bound to its hospitable board by invisible chains are the material ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... us followed the same liberal exercises; and he afterwards accompanied me to Rhodes, to pursue those studies which might equally improve him as a Man and a Scholar; but when he returned from thence, he appears to me to have been rather ambitious to be the foremost man in a secondary profession, than the second in that which claims the highest dignity. I will not pretend to say that he could not have ranked himself among the foremost in the latter profession; but he rather chose to be, what he actually made himself, the ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... there are many difficulties in the way; as when parents are too ambitious, or when sons are obstinate and self-willed, or when both are antagonistic to each other. If, as is not infrequently the case, a youth has no particular taste for any profession, and shows no very obvious capacity for anything, is it ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... the fellows," he said, with good-will. "Here in the East, I thought they aspired to nothing better than the two; but they are ambitious, and play with royal fours. Let us ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... cause the passenger to constantly believe that the boat is just going to drive against the shore. Upon the arrival at Nantasket pier the passenger is aware that he is at a popular resort. Barges and coaches line the long pier; ambitious porters give all possible strength of inflection to the names of their respective hotels; while innumerable menu cards are thrust into the visitors' hands, each calling particular attention to the chowders ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various
... desertion quite as keenly as did his mother and father, for his schemes, though inchoate, were ambitious, and his heart was set upon them. Lorelei's obstinacy was exasperating—a ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... into whose control the highway of traffic should pass. President Jefferson called the attention of Congress to this retrocession. He anticipated the French designs. He justly feared that Napoleon Bonaparte would seek to renew the old colonial glories of France, and the warlike genius and ambitious spirit of the "First Consul" augmented this fear. Word came in November, 1802, of an expedition being fitted out under French command to take possession of Louisiana, all protests of our Minister to the transfer having proved futile. Our nation then realized fully the peril ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... clamber up and by his playmate sit; Led on by Love he came, but found, alas! Scant welcome and encouragement; the king Saw fair Suruchee sweep into the hall With stately step,—aye, every inch a queen, And dared not smile upon her co-wife's son. Observing him,—her rival's boy,—intent To mount ambitious to his father's knee, Where sat her own, thus fair Suruchee spake: "Why hast thou, child, formed such a vain design? Why harboured such an aspiration proud, Born from another's womb and not from mine? Oh thoughtless! To desire the loftiest place, The throne ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... ones. It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, it made Demorest more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt. Whiskey Dick alone remained stolid and impassive in a desperate attempt to pull himself once more together. Eventually he succeeded, even to the ambitious achievement of mounting a chair and lifting his tin cup with a dangerously unsteady hand, which did not, however, affect his ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... first it was thought necessary to discourage the eagerness with which they sought to exercise the elective franchise, by frequent reference to the evils which had already resulted therefrom. Now and then, when some ambitious colored man had endeavored to organize his people and to secure political advancement through their suffrages, he had been politely cautioned in regard to the danger, and the fate which had overwhelmed others was gently recalled to his memory. For a while, too, employers ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... form'd this scene, These tumbled rock-piles grim and red, These reckless heaven-ambitious peaks, These gorges, turbulent-clear streams, this naked freshness, These formless wild arrays, for reasons of their own, I know thee, savage spirit—we have communed together, Mine too such wild arrays, for reasons ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... that he had not bettered by accepting payment for works before they were completed. It was now all pouring out and nothing coming in, and there was no hope. He projected a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences upon a comprehensive system, at once practical and ambitious. Failing health had made him sadly dilatory. The booksellers, who had lost confidence in his schemes, did not hold him the man for this encyclopaedic labour or suited for long and strenuous strain. Friends ineffectually tried to procure ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • E. S. Lang Buckland
... which Selfishness had reared, and exposed the misrepresentations upon which alone the unsubstantial fabric could have rested. It is quiet and good-natured, but cutting; and will act as an antidote to the elaborate sophistry of Mr. CAMPBELL'S ambitious brochure. . . . WE think we shall publish 'L. D. Q.'s 'Parody;' but should like him to change the third stanza, which is 'like a mildewed ear, blasting its wholesome brothers.' The other verses are capital. One of the cleverest modern parodies which we remember, was ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... of a Strike against All Entrepreneurs in a Subgroup.—A strike against employers in an entire subgroup may gain more for the workmen, but the more ambitious effort encounters stronger resistance. The employers, we assume, are competing still and have not the power which a monopoly would give them to raise the prices of their products. Nevertheless, they can concede somewhat more when they ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... to lunch with us on Wednesday. Her remarkable restoration to health has attracted a good deal of attention, and has given Ernest a certain reputation which does not come amiss to him. Not that he is ambitious; a more unworldly man does not live; but his extreme reserve and modesty have obscured the light that is now beginning to shine. We all enjoyed Miss Clifford's visit. She is one of the freshest, most original creatures I ever met ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... pictures were: The Poet reading his Manuscript Play of Five Acts to a Friend; Too many Cooks Spoil the Broth; The Nightmare; The Mathematician's Abstraction (the latter purchased by Lord Northwick). His most ambitious work in oils (upwards of seventeen feet in length) was called A Trip to Ascot Races. His last work, The Enthusiast (the first we have mentioned), was exhibited at Somerset House at ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... came originally from that place to which persons of bad character are said to be sent—I mean Coventry, where my father for many years contributed his share to the success of parliamentary candidates, the happiness of new married couples, and even the gratification of ambitious courtiers, by taking part in the manufacture of ribands for election cockades, wedding favours, and cordons of chivalry; but trade failed, and, like his betters, he became bankrupt, but, unlike his ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... liking for Ali, it was because she found in him, not only her blood, but also her character. During the lifetime of her husband, whom she feared, she seemed only an ordinary woman; but as soon as his eyes were closed, she gave free scope to the violent passions which agitated her bosom. Ambitious, bold, vindictive, she assiduously cultivated the germs of ambition, hardihood, and vengeance which already strongly showed themselves in the young Ali. "My son," she was never tired of telling him, "he who cannot defend his patrimony ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - ALI PACHA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... in other respects—they were desperately poor; neither had an income; neither had a profession; both were ambitious. Johnson had written a tragedy—"Irene"—and he had read it to Garrick several times, and Garrick said it was good and should make a hit. But Garrick didn't know much about tragedies—law was his bent—he had read law for two years, off and on. They would go to London ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... enjoy, who peruse the life of this great author, drawn by the masterly and impartial hand of lord Orrery. We there discern the greatness and weakness of Dean Swift; we discover the patriot, the genius, and the humourist; the peevish master, the ambitious statesman, the implacable enemy, and the warm friend. His mixed qualities and imperfections are there candidly marked: His errors and virtues are so strongly represented, that while we reflect upon his virtues, we ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... Peveril, who, though she knew the high and ambitious spirit of the Countess, scarce anticipated the extremities to which it was capable of hurrying her—"have you ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... in mother-in-legal matters. She is gentle and unoffending. She prefers minding her own business to assuming a trust control of other people's affairs, but HER mother—well, I don't wish any ill to Mrs. Evarts, but if anybody is ambitious to adopt an orphan lady, with advice on tap at all hours in all matters from winter flannels to the conversion of the Hottentots, I will cheerfully lead him to the goal of his desires, and with alacrity surrender to him all my right, title, and interest in her. At the same time ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... valley of Coquimbo, fighting under the orders of thy marshal, Alonzo de Alvarado, against Francis Hernandez Giron, then a rebel, as I am at present, and shall be always; for since thy viceroy, the Marquis de Canete, a cowardly, ambitious, and effeminate man, has hanged our most valiant warriors, I care no more for thy pardon than for the books of Martin Luther. It is not well in thee, King of Spain, to be ungrateful toward thy vassals; for it was whilst thy father, the emperor Charles, remained quietly ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... flying drift we were off at 10 A.M. next day. At first we were ambitious and moved away with two sledges, sinking from two to three feet all the time. Forty yards was as much as we could do without a rest, and by lunch time nine hundred yards was the total. Now the course was downhill, and the two sledges were pulled together, creeping along with painful slowness, ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... evident to those who knew anything of the matter, that Mrs. Melcombe, as she thought, had carried her out of harm's way; and it is a good thing Laura did not know with what perfect composure and ambitious hope Joseph made his preparations for the voyage. The sudden change of circumstances and occupation, and the new language he had to learn, woke him thoroughly from his dream, and though it had been for some long time both deep and strong, yet it was to him ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... a fine disorder which has been overpraised, and which on close expression is found to be very careful, he has been regarded as the very type of dignified and poetic style, and more or less to be imitated by all ambitious poets commencing with Ronsard. The wise, like Horace, have contented themselves with praising him. From fragments left to us he is infinitely ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... Faustus, plays his own pious game at winning souls, and risks—charity. The griping money-catcher, who shudders at the thought of losing gold in spendthrift play, takes his own close and cunning game at winning wealth, and risks—esteem. The ambitious aspirant, who scorns such empty things as cards, plays boldly at his daring game at winning position, and risks—honor. The bright-eyed girl throws heart and soul into the enchanting game of love, and risks—virtue. Charity, esteem, honor, virtue,—are not these great stakes to offer, beside ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... arms are middling, those achieved with the aid of feet are inferior, while those done by carrying loads are the lowest. If the king is clever in the transaction of business and restrains his senses, his kingdom endures. Manu himself has said that it is with the aid of the intelligence that an ambitious person succeeds in achieving victories. In this world, O Yudhishthira, they who listen to wise counsels that are not generally known, that are, O sinless one, possessed of allies, and that act after proper scrutiny, succeed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... rather to increase than diminish his attractions in the eyes of the politicians. A movement was set on foot to bring about this nomination, and its managers planned to make Mr. Webster Vice-President on the ticket with the victorious soldier. Such an offer was a melancholy commentary on his ambitious hopes. He spurned the proposition as a personal indignity, and, disapproving always of the selection of military men for the presidency, openly refused to give his assent to Taylor's nomination. Other trials, however, were still in store for him. Mr. Clay ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Bruce was very handsome—and as nice as he was handsome. Those two years he was here were the nicest, gayest time I ever had. I wish he had stayed in Canada. But of course he wouldn't do that. His father was a rich man and Bruce was ambitious. Oh, Janet, I wish I could live in the old land. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... However, the engaging works of Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller, of Mrs. Florence M. Bailey, and of many others prove that women are not debarred from outdoor studies, and that in some ways they may even have an advantage over men; they are not so ambitious to cover a wide territory, to penetrate to out-of-the-way haunts, or to roll up a long "list," and they are therefore apt to make more intimate studies of the common species, thus getting into the very heart of the bird's ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... "is somewhat older than Tyrcis; he is not an ill-favored shepherd; it is even said that the muses condescended to smile upon him at his birth, even as Hebe smiled upon youth. He is not ambitious of display, but he is ambitious of being loved; and he might not, perhaps, he found unworthy of it, if he were only ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ambitious for office, but they fill regularly, without question, the following: State Superintendent of Public Instruction, County School Superintendent, County Treasurer, City Treasurer and, in many counties, Auditor and the appointive offices, Law Librarian ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Captain Bilge, grown suddenly quiet, "I threw them all over and intend to throw the rest. Listen, Blowhard, you are young, ambitious, and trustworthy. I ...
— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... in which this passage stands had no less ambitious an aim than the remodelling of the classification of the Mammalia, its author might be supposed to have written under a sense of peculiar responsibility, and to have tested, with especial care, the statements he ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... just as a rich field, if not properly tilled, will produce both weeds and good fruit. The immense energy and courage of his mind used to urge him to attempt and to perform great exploits, but his harsh and ambitious temper made it difficult for him to live on friendly terms with his companions. They used to admire his indifference to pleasure and pain, and his contempt for bribes, but in politics they were angered by his morose and haughty manner, ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... am I to know that?" I contended, hating to seem hard and selfish and narrow in the teeth of an ambitious man's enterprise. ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... contented cows, and stood a foot and eight inches high, measuring nine feet, four inches around the middle. The assembled donors of the cheese were so proud of it that they asked royal permission to exhibit it on a round of country fairs. The Queen assented to this ambitious request, perhaps prompted by the exhibition-minded Albert. The publicity-seeking cheesemongers assured Her Majesty that the gift would be returned to her just as soon as it had been exhibited. But the Queen didn't want it back after it was show-worn. The donors began to quarrel among themselves ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... indeed she is a daughter of Heth and hath the portion of her people, is heiress to the Earl of Monteith, and whaso-ever marries her will succeed to what money there is and will be an earl in his own richt. A fine prize for an avaricious and ambitious worldling. ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... crying soul along this road strewn with thorns and stones. I know what it is to lie awake all night and cry like a baby, with none to know and none to tell me what to do. I know what it is to be tremendously ambitious. Ambition! Ambition! Ah, God of Heaven! How a poor soul suffers who beyond everything else, craves to be able to do something big in this world because he knows he should, yet is held down by this dreadful thing, "nerves!" And how little, how unspeakably little, do physicians, even the greatest ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... American Independence, we may well ask ourselves what right we have to indulge in public rejoicings. If the war in which we are engaged is an accidental one, which might have been avoided but for our fault; if it is for any ambitious or unworthy purpose on our part; if it is hopeless, and we are madly persisting in it; if it is our duty and in our power to make a safe and honorable peace, and we refuse to do it; if our free institutions are in danger ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... jewelry, connoisseurs in gems, and collectors of pearls; and whilst the contented and apathetic Singhalese in the villages and forests of the interior passed their lives in the cultivation of their rice-lands, and sought no other excitement than the pomp and ceremonial of their temples; the busy and ambitious Mahometans on the coast built their warehouses at the ports, crowded the harbours with their shipping, and collected the wealth and luxuries of the island, its precious stones, its dye-woods, its spices and ivory, to be forwarded to ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... not a common woman," responded Cleopatra, with emphasis. "I am ambitious, not to be led, but to lead. I must rule or I must die. I cannot love a master, only fear him. Why, because I was born a woman, must I give up all my royal aspirations to rise to a great place among princes, to build up a great empire in the East, to make Alexandria a capital with the power of ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... in due course a member of the Upper Canada Bar. He only practised for a few years. He found the profession profitable enough but uncongenial—as it could not well help being, in an obscure Canadian, village, twenty years ago—and very probably he was already cherishing ambitious dreams of literary labors, which he was eager to begin in the world's literary centre, London. He accordingly relinquished his practice as soon as he felt himself in a position to do so, and went ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... holding that position, was not inclined to lessen its authority. He was gradually assuming for that position the prerogatives of a Premier, and men were beginning to talk of Mr. Seward's ministry. It may easily be understood that at such a time the powers of Congress would be undefined, and that ambitious members of Congress would rise and assert on the floor, with that peculiar voice of indignation so common in parliamentary debate, "that they had got to learn," etc. etc. etc. It seemed to me that the lesson which they had yet to learn was then ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... just as if we had not made this ambitious attempt, which may go for nothing, and you can have your money refunded, if you will ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.) |
