"Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I cannot offer her an untried heart; 'tis somewhat worn by many barterings. But I know that this heart beats with accentuation in her presence; and when I come to her some day and clasp her in my arms, as I aspire to do, I trust that her lips may not turn away from mine and that she may be more glad because I am so near and that her stainless heart may sound an echoing chime. For, with a great and troubled adoration, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... thousand livres, in rentes sur l'etat—a handsome sum, but nothing to compare to the rent-roll of Count Dominic, Count de la Grinche, Seigneur de la Haute Pigre, Baron de la Bigorne; he had estates and wealth which might authorize him to aspire to the hand of ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— The Malefactor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... World, whose pedigrees are arithmetic (at least with many of its items, though the true Uncle Sam was the last for that); neither could I come up to the largeness of universal brotherhood. That was not to be expected of a female; and few things make a man more angry than for his wife to aspire to it. No such ideas had ever troubled me; I had more important things to think of, or, at any rate, something to be better carried out. And of all these desultory thoughts it came that I packed up that odious but very lovely locket, without further attempt ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... noontide of this nineteenth century, in which we subtly live and subtly suffer. Always throughout the circling ages the soul of man has to some slight extent aspired after folly, as Nature aspires after Art, and as the old and learned aspire after the wonderful ignorance that lies hidden between the scarlet covers of the passionate book of youth. Always there have been in the world earnest men and earnest women striving with a sacred wisdom to compass the highest forms of folly, seeking with a manifold persistence ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... And what is power without recognition? Nothing. If the prettiest of women were left alone in a corner of a drawing-room, she would droop. Put her in the very centre and summit of social grandeur, she will at once aspire to reign over all hearts—often because it is out of her power to be the happy queen of one. Dress and manner and coquetry are all meant to please one of the poorest creatures extant—the brainless coxcomb, whose handsome face is his sole merit; it was ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... despatches, as we have said, contained the wish that Mary Stuart should espouse Leicester; but this proposal could not be taken seriously. Leicester, whose personal worth was besides sufficiently mediocre, was of birth too inferior to aspire to the hand of the daughter of so many kings; thus Mary replied that such an alliance would not become her. Meanwhile, something strange and tragic ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... passion, or opinion. The character we mean to indicate achieves this [249] perfect life by a happy gift of nature, without any struggle at all. Not the saint only, the artist also, and the speculative thinker, confused, jarred, disintegrated in the world, as sometimes they inevitably are, aspire for this simplicity to the last. The struggle of this aspiration with a lower practical aim in the mind of Savonarola has been subtly traced by the author of Romola. As language, expression, is the function of intellect, as art, the supreme expression, is the highest ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... these superficial students aspire to become opera singers, after a couple of seasons' study. Of course they all cast eyes at the Metropolitan, as the end and aim ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... his brother Toby. Who shall set bounds to the everlasting variety of nature, as she has recorded her creations in the heart of man? Most of these instances are recent, and sufficiently shew that the enterprising adventurer, who would aspire to emulate the illustrious men from whose writings these examples are drawn, has no cause ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... Roman conceded many privileges and recognized many rights among women, he never went so far as to think that a woman of great family could aspire to the right of choosing her own husband. Custom, indeed, much restricted the young man also, at least in a first marriage. The choice rested with the fathers, who were accustomed to affiance their sons early, indeed when mere boys. The heads of two friendly ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... desires of the great aspire high. (He walks about and speaks to some one not visible.) Ancient Shakalya, how is Marichi's holy son occupied? (He listens.) What do you say? That he is explaining to Aditi, in answer to her question, the duties of a faithful wife? My matter must await a fitter time. (He ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa
... are not of the same stature, so their minds differ in the means of accepting knowledge, or entertainment, and to please every one is a difficult thing. To hope, therefore, that I should afford amusement to all who read these pages, would be to aspire for that which has not fallen to the lot of any one; but if out of the incongruity of opinions I have expressed, be they ever so weak, or opposed to each other, instruction may be taken, then I shall not have striven without a result. For me, I have no moral lesson to teach; ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... Church is not sufficient for my wants or I have not seen it in its glory. I hope it may be the latter. I do not want to say it, but I must own that it fills me no more. I contemplate it, I look at it, I comprehend it. It does not lead me to aspire. I feel that either it has nothing to give, or that what it has is not that for which my soul is aching. I know it can be said in reply that I cannot know what the Church has until I am in communion with it; that it satisfies natures greater ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... said, "I aspire to be thought a man of the world—it is a failing of youth; but, then, I am young. As a man of the world, I cogitated a pretty good long time before I set out for Paris ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... race, there must be a great amount of pride about a race, there must be a great deal of faith on the part of a race in itself. An individual cannot succeed unless he has about him a certain amount of pride,—enough pride to make him aspire to the highest and best things in life. An individual cannot succeed unless that individual has a great amount ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... mittens were of dye, not of silk; and they had been paid for, not in money, but the cooked flesh of men. It came in my mind with a clap, what she could think of it herself, and whether at heart, perhaps, she might not regret and aspire after the barbarous and stirring past. But when I asked Stanislao—'Ah!' said he, 'she is content; she is religious, she passes all ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of stories, people had acquired the habit of remaining in the condition in which they were placed; they were not irritated by being obliged to stay in it; the soldier who enlisted did not aspire to become an officer; the young officer of the lower noblesse and of small means did not aspire to the post of colonel or lieutenant-general; a limited perspective kept hopes and the imagination from fruitlessly launching forth into a boundless future: ambition, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... America; but the pursuit of literature and art is one which a young man need not feel it discreditable to adopt. The contemporaries of a brilliant youth at Oxford or at Cambridge do not secretly despise him if he declines to enter business. The first-class man does not normally aspire to start life as a drummer. Public life and the Church offer honourable careers; and both of them have traditional affinities with literature. So has the Law, still in England a profession and not a trade. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... ensigncy. I will myself write at the first opportunity, the first express, to Lieutenant-Governor Bull, who is acquainted with my family connections in England. It is very praiseworthy, very laudable indeed, that you should aspire to a commission in the military service,—the provincial forces. I honor you for your readiness to fight—although, to be sure, being Irish, you can't help it. Still, it is to your credit that you are Irish. I am very partial to the Irish ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... called upon to assume, but that he had every prospect of being employed. As a captain of an Indiaman, he was aware that reception into society, wealth, and consideration awaited him; and, what made his heart to swell with gratitude and exultation, was the feeling that soon he would be enabled to aspire to the hand of one to whom he had so long been ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... all exalted are, when thou art styled their sire: None else the title dares accept, of all that men admire. Lord of the radiant brow, whose light dispels the mists of doubt From every goal of high emprize whereunto folk aspire, Ne'er may thy visage cease to shine with glory and with joy, Although the face of Fate should gloom with unremitting ire! Even as the clouds pour down their dews upon the thirsting hills, Thy grace pours favour on my head, outrunning my desire. With liberal hand thou casteth forth thy ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... the Basis has been often misunderstood. It is not a confession of faith, or a statement of the whole content and meaning of Socialism. It is merely a test of admission, a minimum basis of agreement, acceptance of which is required from those who aspire to share in the control of a Society which had set out to reconstruct our social system. The most memorable part of the discussion was the proposal of Mr. Stuart Glennie to add a clause relating to marriage and ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... passion of the father of Emilius. It had prompted him to aspire to every distinction granted to the successful by the state, but it had not gifted him with the powers requisite to turn his aspirations in any instance into acquisitions. He passed through existence a disappointed man, planning but never performing, ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... the subject from the expression; they inhere in and completely saturate each other; and to it, therefore, to the condition of its perfect moments, all the arts may be supposed constantly to tend and aspire. In music, then, rather than in poetry, is to be found the true type or measure of perfected art. Therefore, although each art has its incommunicable element, its untranslatable order of impressions, its unique mode of reaching the "imaginative reason," yet the arts may be represented ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... point to them, as they will to me, and say, 'See, what a ghastly failure! See how feeble after all, are these pretentious women of the new order, who begin by denying the sufficiency of the life assigned them, by common consent, and end by failing in that and in the other which they aspire to. What has become of all the talent and all the theories and resolves?' And so the next girl who dares to have ambitions, and dares to scorn the role of adventuress that society allots to her, will have the harder fate because of my attempt. Now nothing in the whole ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... idle vein is in full flow I fling aside the pen and rush gladly into the open air, seeking high and low for the children, who (delightful thought) will be sure to help me toward that state of frivolity to which the sunshine outside has tempted me to aspire. ...
— How I write my novels • Mrs. Hungerford
... struggle of manly labor against adverse fortune—a struggle in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are now as common to us as air and sunshine, have come from that law of our nature which makes us aspire toward indefinite improvement, enriches each successive generation by the labors of the last, and, in free countries, often lifts the child of the laborer to a place among the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... 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 ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... the days we sought new Indies in the Sparwehr. According to my tale first told in Court, he was the only free man in my following. The rest of the cunies, being considered my slaves, could not aspire to office of any sort under the crown. But Johannes could, and did. The sly old fox! I little guessed his intent when he asked me to make him governor of the paltry little province of Kyong-ju. Kyong-ju ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... think the most rational line I can take is to continue resolutely this struggle for the Vote. With the Vote must come the opening of Parliament to women. I'm not too old to aspire to be some day Secretary of State for Home Affairs. Because the General Post Office has already become interested in my correspondence, and because this is really a "pivotal" letter I am not trusting it to the post ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... notus factus, &c.; namely, by the report of his 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)
... masterpiece. We have, therefore, judged the novel by an impracticable standard, by a comparison with the highest aims rather than the usual attainments of other branches of literary art. Human weakness makes poetry, philosophy, and history imperfect in execution, though they aspire to absolute beauty and truth; human weakness suggested the novel, which is imperfect in design, written as an amusement and relief, in despair of sounding the universe. A novel is in its nature and as a matter of necessity an artistic failure; it pretends ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... "Now we all know what Nick is, and few fellows like to play in a game where he has any part; but remember that he is one of the high-school students, and on that account has just as much right to aspire to a place on the representative ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... indeed, such matters depend much on men's complexions [Note 1], and some find it a deal easier to control them than other. And after all, Edith, there is a sense wherein no man can ever be fully satisfied in this life. We were meant to aspire; and if we were entirely content with present things, then should we grovel. To submit cheerfully is one thing: to be fully gratified, so that no desire is left, is an other. We shall not be that, methinks, till we ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... stories and short stories. On a perusal of those that Mr. RICHARD DEHAN has collected in volume form under the title of The Cost of Wings (HEINEMANN), I am bound to record my conviction that most of them are profoundly unworthy of the author of The Dop Doctor. Few of them even aspire to anything beyond "first serial" quality; and though there is often present a certain easy flippancy of phrase it impressed me only as the crackling of thorns in a pot-boiler. Perhaps the best is the first or title tale, which tells of a young wife goaded ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... secret cabin there he held * * * * * Then home he suffred her for to retyre, For ransome leaving him the late borne childe; Whom till to ryper yeares he gan aspire, 200 He noursled up in life and manners wilde, Emongst wild beasts and woods, from ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... 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 continues in ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... verse! and don't abuse A bashful Maiden's ear with news Of her own virtues. She'll refuse Praise sung so loudly. Of that same goodness, you admire, The best part is, she don't aspire To praise—nor of herself desire To ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb
... this country is undone. I desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about most things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, annihilating myself ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... us superhuman persons. On the strength of his decoration and color alone he would hardly have survived his own death twenty years; and even his design would have had only an academic interest; but as a painter of prophets and sibyls he is greatest among the very greatest in his craft, because we aspire to a world of prophets and sibyls. Beethoven never heard of radioactivity nor of electrons dancing in vortices of inconceivable energy; but pray can anyone explain the last movement of his Hammerklavier Sonata, Opus 106, otherwise than as a musical picture of these whirling electrons? ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... at present without much profit. When the Chinese government requires a vast quantity of copper the order is sent to the United States. Japan cannot be considered as a producer of minerals of sufficient importance to aspire to a profitable career through them, for the yearly aggregate value of all minerals, including gold from the Formosa mines, ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... for himself, were not altogether indispensable qualifications, even under a Venetian constitution, in an individual who aspired to a post so eminent and responsible. Satisfied with the stars and mitres and official seals, which were periodically apportioned to them, the Marney family did not aspire to the somewhat graceless office of being their distributor. What they aimed at was promotion in their order; and promotion to the highest class. They observed that more than one of the other great "civil and religious liberty" families,—the families who in one century plundered ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... canvas bags, which he conceived would fit his needs, and an ambition. This last was nothing less than to strike it rich and set himself up among the eminently bourgeois of London. It seemed that the situation of the wealthy English middle class, with just enough gentility above to aspire to, and sufficient smaller fry to bully and patronize, appealed to his imagination, though of course he did not put ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... see their 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 obtaining the high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire. A. Jackson. ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... 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 ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... I aspire to no such elevated and difficult situation. I declare myself not only undesirous of it, but deeply conscious of a constitutional unfitness for it. Age and hygienic necessities bind me to a somewhat anchoritic life in pure air, with abundant ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... a swelling flood is that powerful league. Of this mighty Order I am no mean member, but already one of the Chief Commanders, and may well aspire one day to hold the baton of Grand Master. The poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon the necks of Kings—a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed step shall ascend their throne—our gauntlet shall wrench the sceptre from their gripe. Not the reign of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... would scarcely do the ark much harm. They have not the explosive power of Ibsen's. There are in every age men who, unable to achieve the fame of Dinocrates, who built the temple of the Ephesian Diana, aspire to that of Herostratos, who destroyed it. To admire these men is as compromising as to ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... chariot, Phaeton, Struck by Jove's thunder, rests beneath this stone, He could not rule his father's car of fire, Yet was it much, so nobly to aspire." ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... (nay, though to all was added the company of Sporus, whom he immediately sent for while Nero's body was yet burning on the pile, and treated as his consort, with the name of Poppaea,) but he must also aspire to the empire. And at Rome he had friends who took measures for him secretly, as well as some women and some members of the senate also, who worked underhand to assist him. And into Spain he dispatched one of his friends, named Gellianus, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... three hundred a year. In the golden days of the Plot he had been allowed three times as much, had been sumptuously lodged in the palace, had dined on plate and had been clothed in silk. He clamoured for an increase of his stipend. Nay, he was even impudent enough to aspire to ecclesiastical preferment, and thought it hard that, while so many mitres were distributed, he could not get a deanery, a prebend, or even a living. He missed no opportunity of urging his pretensions. He ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... seem to forget, Nelly, that I saw one wedding all through, and, indeed, bore as prominent a part in it as one of my downtrodden sex could aspire to; and as the Frenchman said, who went on an English fox-chase, "Une fois, c'est assez; I am ver' satisfy." The marriage service I can read in ten minutes whenever I need its solace; rich morning-dresses are to be seen by scores in the Academy of Music at every matine, as garnish to Verdi's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... shading often being produced in the needle-darning as in modern Ghent and Limerick. Point de Gaze is costly, but it has the reputation of appearing "worth its money" to which few other laces of the present day can aspire. ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes
... obstructions from the paths through which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other authour may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... person to be judged—she was one of the unexplained incidents of existence. The hour has passed when the clearly moral can sum up the responsibilities of a creature born apparently without brain, or soul or courage. Those who aspire to such morals as are expressed by fairness—mere fairness—are much given to hesitation. Courage had never been demanded of Feather so far. She had none whatever and now she only felt panic and resentment. She had no time to ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... favours such as these Unworthy to aspire; Thy feet to tickle were enough For one so mean ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... Miss Temple, said Edwards quickly; there is none who has a right to aspire to you, and I know that you will wait to be sought by your equal; or die, as you live, loved, respected, and admired ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... queer little pumpkin, a jolly fat fellow, Stood close to his mother so rotund and yellow. "What a stupid old place! how I long to aspire," Cried he, "I was destined for ...
— Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper and Other Stories • Anonymous
... have forgiven her any common frailty;—of course it was natural that the girl should have been seduced by the all-conquering charms of her son;—but aspire to marriage with their house!—pretend to be her son's wife! Since the time of Judas had such treachery ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... 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
... inflexible suitor, "when others aspire to your hand, there might come one for whom your answer would be favorable. How then, if this suitor, when pausing to hear what ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... the longed-for thing Which wanderers on the restless foam, Unsheltered beggars, birds on wing, Aspire ...
— Verses • Susan Coolidge
... care of himself probably; in marriage things equalised themselves. She looked at the girl's thin cheeks and lack-lustre eyes, and pitied and hated her with that strange mixture of feeling which our victims aspire in us. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... out, is the most effective; not because the high ideal is high, but because so few are capable of carrying it out; and in that Western world success in aims proposed is the highest that a man can aspire to. ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... one day tire Of fours and fights and iron shards, Will seize his pencil and aspire To court the Muse and match the fire Of us poetic cards; Then I shall mock his meagre strain And gaily make the moral plain, How barren is the soldier's brain Compared with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... chariot, Phaethon, Struck by Jove's thunder, rests beneath this stone. He could not rule his father's car of fire, Yet was it much so nobly to aspire. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... doubt, the visit of the distinguished member of the Government of the United States shall make the peoples of the north and the south know one another better; if the era of Pan American fraternity takes the flight to which we should aspire; if these demonstrations of courtesy are to tend, therefore, toward the progress of the nations of the continent and the mutual respect and consideration of their respective governments, the satisfaction of having ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... reign, or heartless slaves obey. "Not unto chance must aught of power be given,— A country's genius is the gift of Heaven. What warms the poet's lays with generous fire, To which no toil can reach, no art aspire? Who taught the sage, with deepest wisdom fraught, While scarce one pupil grasps the ponderous thought? Nay, wherefore ask?—as Heaven the mind bestows, A Napier calculates and a Thomson glows. Now turn to ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... a small place," said Mr. Montgomery, modestly, "but my tastes are plain and unobtrusive, and I do not aspire to a more conspicuous post. However, that is not to the purpose. A lady parishioner, desiring to donate a portion of her wealth to the poor, has placed in my hand a diamond ring, the proceeds to be devoted to charitable objects. I desire to sell it, and, knowing the high reputation of your firm ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... these, 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 of it, forthwith Seem'd it unto me ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... once disputed the claim of its rival to the title of Queen of Flowers, and though it has never succeeded in taking the place of the latter in the estimation of the average flower-lover, it occupies a position in the floral world that no other flower dare aspire to. ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... feelings, and gratifying yours, by proposing the health of our distinguished, able, and high-minded representative, whose Congressional career proves that there is no office in the gift of a free and happy people to which he may not legitimately aspire. I have the honor and pleasure to propose, with three times three, the Honorable ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... yielding, rule by obeying, conquer by surrender, and put the crowning grace of joy and glory on her sex by ministering to the hurts and wants of humanity. Kindled by her example, and compensated by her smile, man will aspire to complete his highest destiny. Her destiny will be fulfilled with his, and in it; his in hers, and with it. They cannot be really separated; since woman as the inspirer and rewarder of man, in the most intense action at the top ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... if I gave him the chance! Do you know," the Governor interrupted himself with a pleasantly reminiscent laugh, "I was rather annoyed with Grace when she hinted that you had promised to back up Ashford—I told her you didn't aspire to distribute patronage. But she might have reminded me—if she'd known—that it was you who persuaded me to ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... again—a struggle the details of which were not even told her, and which she has no curiosity to hear. She is content to work on to the end, believing that it was God's will for her to do so. The lay sisters can aspire to none of the convent offices; they have none of the smaller distractions of receiving guests, and instructing converts and so forth, and not to have as much time for prayer as they desire is their penance. They ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... of military manhood formed a motive for colonisation. In the first place, the surplus manhood of a nation was lost to it if it was allowed to pass under an alien flag by emigration. Those continental states from which emigration took place on a large scale began to aspire after the possession of colonies of their own, where their emigrants could still be kept under control, and remain subject to the obligations of service. Germany, the state which beyond all others measures its strength by its fighting man-power, was ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... to preserve to the individual his right to aspire, to make of himself what he will, and at the same time find himself early, accurately, and with certainty, is the problem of ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... heart aspire To the gross home of wealth and pride; Nor be it to a hearth allied That vaunts ...
— Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays • AEschylus
... to-morrow to quit this city," Goliba said. "Hasten not thy decision, but what I will show thee secretly ere long will perhaps convince thee of the terrors of the Naya's reign. I have often counselled the queen to aspire to the virtues of truth, wisdom, justice and moderation, the great ornaments of the Emerald Throne, but my endeavours have been frustrated and the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... among the great singers of the age was no less assured than if she had queened it over the public heart for a score of seasons, and in her endowment as an artist was recognized a bounteous wealth of gifts to which none of her rivals could aspire. Her resources appeared to be without limit; she knew every language to which music is sung, every style in which music can be written with equal fluency. All schools, whether ancient or modern, severe or florid, sacred or profane, severely ...
— Great Singers, Second Series - Malibran To Titiens • George T. Ferris
... Hastati, Principes, and Triarii ceased; the Velites disappeared, their work being done by the foreign mercenaries; the cavalry ceased to be part of the legion, and became a distinct body; and the military was completely severed from the rest of the state. Formerly no one could aspire to office who had not completed ten years of military service, but in the time of Cicero a man could pass through all the great dignities of the state with a very limited experience of military life. Cicero ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... tidings were received with astonishment and a joy that was dashed with reflections on the strength and mettle of colonists supposed already to aspire to independence. Pepperrell was made a baronet, and Warren an admiral. The merchant soldier was commissioned colonel in the British army; a regiment was given him, to be raised in America and maintained by the King, while a similar recognition was granted to the lawyer Shirley. [Footnote: To ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... drawn out is called Cunaxa, being about five hundred furlongs distant from Babylon. And here Clearchus beseeching Cyrus before the fight to retire behind the combatants, and not expose himself to hazard, they say he replied, "What is this, Clearchus? Would you have me, who aspire to empire, show myself unworthy of it?" But if Cyrus committed a great fault in entering headlong into the midst of danger, and not paying any regard to his own safety, Clearchus was as much to blame, if not more, in refusing to lead the Greeks against the main body of the enemy, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... prophetic vision and your seizure of occasion. The First Consul is a madman! He has sold to us an Empire! Empire! Emperor—Emperor of the West! The sound is stately. You laugh. We are citizens of a republic. Well! I am content. I aspire no higher. I am not Buonaparte. Your lilies are budding beneath the windows; the sweet williams are all in bloom. I have little news for you of town or country—Mrs. Randolph, doubtless, sends ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston
... altered for the better since he left me at London, neither could I conceive by which means he was enabled to appear in the sphere of a gentleman, to which, while I knew him, he had not even the ambition to aspire. But I was too much concerned in the affair to neglect further information, and therefore took the first opportunity of asking the porter if he knew the gentleman to whom the marquis spoke. The Swiss told me his name was Monsieur ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... never before had he seen it so dreamy—never before had he seen it so beautiful and so glorious, for never before had he so felt the use of this world as a place in which to attain to the good and to shun the evil, to overcome temptation and to aspire to life. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... soul may be the muse of Comedy. If Hawthorne and his kind are not your fashion, turn to models that have their feet on the earth always, yet successfully aspire. Key some of your intimate humorous scenes to the Dutch Little Masters of Painting, such pictures as Gerard Terburg's Music Lesson in the Chicago Art Institute. The thing is as well designed as a Dutch house, wind-mill, ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... opponent's definition of man's reasoning power. His sole object was to show that, if one accepted this definition, one must not go as far as Hume in the application of this power. All that Kant could aspire to do was to protect the ethical from attack by the intellectual part of man, and to do this by proving that the former belongs to a world into which the latter has no access. For with his will man belongs to a world of purposeful doing, whereas the reason, ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... endeavor to make our entrance into a glorious immortality so unutterably ghastly? Let us glide into the "fair shadowland" through a "gate of flowers," if we may no longer, as in the majestic olden time, aspire heavenward on ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... this strain for a long while, king Yudhishthira the just, filled with fear and grief, said these words unto Vasudeva: 'Through thy grace, O Govinda, my kingdom hath been reft of thorns! That which we could not in imagination even aspire to obtain hath now become ours, O thou of unfading glory! Before my eyes, O mighty-armed one, making the very hair stand on end, violent were the blows that thou hadst to bear, O delighter of the Yadavas! In the battle between the gods and the Asuras, thou hadst, in days of old, lent ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... only reply by a look. She had long worshipped Mr. Pickwick at a distance, but here she was, all at once, raised to a pinnacle to which her wildest and most extravagant hopes and never dared to aspire. Mr. Pickwick was going to propose—a deliberate plan, too—sent her little boy to the Borough, to get him out ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... shook his radiant head in warning. "I have 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 ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... routs were given in the ensuing spring. Mr. and Mrs. Beaufort became persons of considerable importance. The rich man had, even when poor, been ambitious; his ambition now centred in his only son. Arthur had always been considered a boy of talents and promise; to what might he not now aspire? The term of his probation with the tutor was abridged, and Arthur Beaufort was sent at once ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... adverse criticism—ran, as he walked towards Government House, just about the same time as Mr. Kilshaw was also thinking of betaking himself thither. A great man (Mr. Coxon's reflections continued) can aspire to the hand of any lady—more especially when he depends not merely on intellectual ability (which is by no means everything), but is also a man of culture, of breeding, of a University education, and of a very decent income. He forbore to throw his personal ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... such few friends as my life has hitherto won to itself, to consider well the direct purport of this letter. If you, born in a grade so much higher than mine, feel that it is unwarrantable insolence in me to aspire to the hand of my patron's grandchild, say so plainly; and I remain not less grateful for your friendship than I was to your goodness when dining for the first time at your father's palace. Shy and sensitive and young, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... strikes down through the bare branches, and the cold wind is fended off. The fleshy lances of the spring beauty have stabbed upward through the mulch, and a tiny cup, delicately veined with pink, hangs its head bashfully. Anemones on brown wire stems aspire without a leaf, and in moist patches are May pinks, the trailing arbutus of the grown-ups. As we carry home a bunch, the heads all lopping every way like the heads of strangled babies, we can almost hear behind us in the echoing forests a long, heart-broken moan, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... "'He may entreat, aspire, He may despair, and she has never heed, She, drinking his warm sweat, will soothe ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of birds on the ground that an egg has no feathers... Whatever M. France may believe, our concern is here with the conviction of M. Coignard that his religion is all-important and all-significant. And it is curious to observe how unerringly the abbe's thoughts aspire, from no matter what remote and low-lying starting-point, to the loftiest niceties of religion and the high thin atmosphere of ethics. Sauce spilt upon the good man's collar is but a reminder of the influence of clothes ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... if you love dancing and aspire to make it a career, you possess an innate sense of rhythm. You feel the swing of music and love to move your body to the strains of a lilting melody. The first great possessions of the successful stage dancer are a love of harmonious sounds and a sense of rhythmic ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff's shop did not aspire to that luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff's head and a customer's head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to fix upon a skein of a particular ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was in the minds of his colleagues. He, indeed, to be general of the Society of Jesus!—how strange and preposterous a supposition! Positively he could think of no such thing. What a life had he led before his conversion! How abounding in weaknesses had been his course since! How could he aspire to rule others, who so poorly could rule himself? Days of prayer must yet be devoted to the purpose of imploring the divine aid in directing the minds of all toward one who should indeed be qualified for so arduous an office. At the end of this term Loyola was a second time elected, and again ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... had, besides, a body of troops (which was not very numerous) levied from among their own citizens; and this was a kind of school, in which the flower of their nobility, and those whose talents and ambition prompted them to aspire to the first dignities, learned the rudiments of the art of war. From among these were selected all the general officers, who were put at the head of the different bodies of their forces, and had the chief command ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... meets me in the public throng: Her hair streams backward from her loose attire; She hath a trumpet and an eye of fire; She points me downward steadily and long— 'There is thy grave—arise, my son, be strong! Hands are upon thy crown; awake, aspire To immortality; heed not the lyre Of the enchantress, nor her poppy-song; But in the stillness of the summer calm, Tremble for what is godlike in thy being. Listen awhile, and thou shalt hear the psalm Of victory sung by creatures past thy seeing; And from far battle-fields there ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... meat by cutting myself the fat—no! I am a digger, but not only a digger, I aspire to the honor of being a captain of diggers; my claim ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... as it seems to them, is an enormous field for the energy of the reformer. Here are many noble goals attainable by many of those paths up the Hill Difficulty along which great spirits love to aspire. Unhappily, the hill will never be climbed by Man as we know him. It need not be denied that if we all struggled bravely to the end of the reformers' paths we should improve the world prodigiously. But there is no more hope in that If than in the equally ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... acted amid these beautiful objects, perhaps attending a reception in a Fifth Avenue mansion where the father of a beautiful New York society girl would tell him that he must first make good before he could aspire to her hand. And he would make good—out there in the great open spaces, where the girl would come to him after many adventures and where they would settle to an untroubled future in the ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... bar you mentioned, yet made so great a secret of, is at last revealed, and I should be unworthy of the blessing I aspire to, if I were unable to surmount it. Cruel Louisa! you little know me, or the force of that passion you have inspired, to imagine that any difference which chance may have put between us, can make the least alteration in my sentiments!—It is to your ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... made it impossible for any of the leading churches to give recognition to the full meaning of the Protestant idea of the worth of the individual soul, and its right to communicate directly with God. It remained for the persecuted Baptists and Independents, too feeble and despised to aspire to state influence, to work out the Protestant principle to its full expression in the spirit of toleration, to declare for liberty of conscience, the voluntary maintenance of worship, and the ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... "Nor could I aspire to such a position, my lord, until I have proved myself worthy of it. My uncle told me that he had suggested that I might be useful as a bearer of messages, and orders; and as I know every foot of the border, from ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... abundance of the materials which are presented to the mind for arrangement and definition, necessarily impart no inconsiderable difficulties in the choice of the form under p 9 which such a work must be presented, if it would aspire to the honor of being regarded as a literary composition. Descriptions of nature ought not to be deficient in a tone of life-like truthfulness, while the mere enumeration of a series of general results is productive of a no less wearying impression than the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... it is not difficult to avoid becoming a parent. The world is not dying for lack of parents. On the contrary we have far too many of them—ignorant parents, silly parents, unwilling parents, undesirable parents—and those who aspire to the high dignity of creating the future race, let them be as few as they will—and perhaps at the present time the fewer the better—must not refuse the responsibilities of that position, its pains as well ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... obscurantism, ignorance, a time-worn routine, and all that barred the way to culture. Since the government permitted the Jews to enter the social life of the country, and seeing that they might in the future aspire to a better lot, the Haskalah should and would work to prepare them for it and make them worthy ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... away from that, and rely merely on our system, or on methods, or our teaching, we cease just in that proportion to be true Salvationists. We aspire to rule men's hearts. We care nothing for the position of a church or sect; we care everything for a real control over the souls and conduct of living men and women, that we may lead them to God and use them for His glory. It is by tenderness we shall win it. By seeking ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... choice, Humphrey: we both aspire high, for two young foresters, do we not? However, they say 'Every dog has his day,' and Cromwell and his Parliament may have theirs. King Charles may be on his throne again now, long before you ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat |
