"Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... No, no, I am not mad, monster; I am wise enough to find you out. Hadst thou the impudence to aspire at being a husband with that stubborn and disobedient temper? You that know not how to submit to a father, presume to have a sufficient stock of duty to undergo a wife? I should have been finely ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... continued he, "of the temerity of my wishes, but if a crown be wanting to deserve her, let me flatter myself with the hope that this sword, already successful over your enemies, may one day, enforced by love, make my fortune worthy of the glory to which I aspire." The joy which appeared in the face of the Count at this demand, would be impossible to represent: he raised Thibault, and again tenderly embracing him, "My son," said he, "for so henceforth I call you, I pray heaven to dispose my daughter ...
— The Princess of Ponthieu - (in) The New-York Weekly Magazine or Miscellaneous Repository • Unknown
... it may only serve, by imprudent management, to foster a predominant inclination, and push the mind, with more determined resolution, towards that side which already draws too much, by the bias and propensity of the natural temper. It is certain that, while we aspire to the magnanimous firmness of the philosophic sage, and endeavour to confine our pleasures altogether within our own minds, we may, at last, render our philosophy like that of Epictetus, and other Stoics, only a more refined ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... affect the transfiguration of society and bring it under the dominion of the spirit. For that, a far higher quality of thought and action than is here indicated is necessary. The economist can provide the daily bread, but that bread of the coming day which Christ wished his followers to aspire to must come otherwise. That should be the labor of the poets, artists, musicians, and of the heroic and aristocratic characters who provide by their life an image to which life can be modeled. Therefore I beseech audience not only of the churches, ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... identification devised by Bertillon and Anfosso, and all modern aids for the detection and apprehension of criminals, such as rapid communication and publicity, should be utilised in all countries where the police aspire to be considered scientific ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... 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 superstition suggested ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... drunk. They water my vinegar. [He shakes himself; clears his throat; and resumes soberly.] If Catherine takes a fancy to you, you may ask for roubles, diamonds, palaces, titles, orders, anything! and you may aspire to everything: field-marshal, admiral, minister, what ...
— Great Catherine • George Bernard Shaw
... to snuff then and began to clear a passage, kicking out to right and left and laughing when his victims protested. Before he had traversed fifty yards he had made himself more enemies than most men dare aspire to in a lifetime, and he seemed well pleased with the fruit of ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... thought they could write well enough to aspire to this high dignity, wrote one after another what they thought fit. After they had done, I advanced, and took the roll out of the gentleman's hand; but all the people, especially the merchants, cried out, that I would tear it, or throw it into the sea, till they saw how properly I ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... of my countenance, and promising exterior, if not absolutely silly, I was a lad of very little sense, and without ideas of learning; in fine, very ignorant in all respects, and if I could arrive at being curate of some village, it was the utmost honor I ought ever to aspire to. Such was the account he gave of me to Madam de Warrens. This was not the first time such an opinion had been formed of me, neither was it the last; the judgment of M. Masseron ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... should aspire up into the presence of God, to accuse any of the poor saints, and to plead their backslidings against them, as he will do if he can, then there is Jesus, our Lord Jesus, ready in the Court of Heaven, at the right hand ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... him and walked to the other end of the garden. He had never meant to aspire to the Judean throne! He had simply written so determinedly to Costobarus, that the merchant of Ascalon would have no hesitancy in giving him two hundred talents! In these past days, she had learned enough that was blameworthy in this ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... for some moments deep in thought. It was a tempting bait—this of an imperial crown—to one who felt it to be his by right, but who had never dared to expect nor aspire to it. ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... I pray that if I meet with difficulty, I may not go backward, nor stand still, and fear to go forward. Unfold to me the depth and breadth of the ideal and beautiful, that I may not be content to succeed in the shallowness of life: but may I aspire to the height of the soul, even if I fail to acquire great ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... accorded to an interest in art. Whatever may be his vocation, the man feels instinctively that in his total scheme of life books, pictures, music have somewhere a place. In his own business or profession he is an expert, a man of special training; and intelligently he does not aspire to a complete understanding of a subject which lies beyond his province. In the same spirit in which he is a master of his own craft, he is content to leave expert knowledge of art to the expert, to the artist and to the connoisseur. For his ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... seems to me an anachronism. Of what use is it to invoke an ancient sibyl when a muse is on the eve of birth? Pitiable actors in a tragedy nearing its end, that which it behooves us to do is to precipitate the catastrophe. The most deserving among us is he who plays best this part. Well, I no longer aspire to this sad success! ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... anyway, we should have to understand that. And, in fact, we ought unwearyingly to repeat to ourselves that at such and such a time and in such and such circumstances nature does not ask our leave; that we have got to take her as she is and not fashion her to suit our fancy, and if we really aspire to formulas and tables of rules, and well, even ... to the chemical retort, there's no help for it, we must accept the retort too, or else it will be accepted ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... orphan, as any brigand might do? I felt greatly depressed, dearest. That is to say, persuaded that I should never do any good with my life, and that I was inferior even to the sole of my own boot, I took it into my head that it was absurd for me to aspire at all— rather, that I ought to account myself a disgrace and an abomination. Once a man has lost his self-respect, and has decided to abjure his better qualities and human dignity, he falls headlong, and cannot choose but do so. It is decreed of fate, and therefore ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dazzle with brightness, As our thoughts forever aspire, For a mantle of perfect whiteness, Shall cover ...
— Life in a Thousand Worlds • William Shuler Harris
... suddenly, like a new truth; the friends we love drop away from our side into silence; desire fails; the grasshopper becomes a burden; until, at length, we feel that our only love is not here below,—until these tendrils of earth aspire to a better climate, and the weight that has been laid upon us makes us stoop wearily to the grave as a rest and a deliverance. We have, even through our tears, admired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... Hampden, to whose brave stand against the illegal demand of ship-money we owe our present liberties; but I mention it to you as the character, which with the alteration of one single word, GOOD, instead of MISCHIEF, I would have you aspire to, and use your utmost endeavors to deserve. The head to contrive, God must to a certain degree have given you; but it is in your own power greatly to improve it, by study, observation, and reflection. As for the TONGUE TO PERSUADE, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... enfranchisement like this; but, if not, we may at least console ourselves for its indefinite postponement, by reflecting that Omnipotence itself is, equally with ourselves, subject to the sort of necessity under which we are groaning; equally destitute of the sort of free-will to which we aspire. It is manifest that, since there cannot be omnipotence without boundless liberty, omnipotence must possess completest freedom of will. Yet even the Will of Omnipotence is subject to the despotism of causation. Divine perfection cannot but ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... in her conscience, but it was satisfactory to have put down Louisa Anderson, who never could aspire to an intimacy with Miss Rivers. Her little sister looked up—"Why, Flora, have you ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... over the heads of guests, occasionally, when he was vehement, throwing his head up, shooting his words at the ceiling as if they had been Greek fire. Now, as he got up to leave her, his eyes dwelt earnestly on her. "It will be a pleasure, to which I shall aspire—that of meeting you ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... the proper strategy in dealing with Spain. He fretted at being condemned to urge them from the outside instead of within. His exclusion from partnership in responsible authority was, he felt, perpetual, unless he could break in. Probably at no period did he aspire after supremacy, or expect to dispossess Cecil. His ambition, though restricted to the hope of admittance to association, would not the less bring him into collision with the jealous Secretary. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... against the Quietists, that within the space of a month upwards of two hundred persons were put into the inquisition; and that method of devotion which had passed in Italy as the most elevated to which mortals could aspire, was deemed heretical, and the chief promoters of it confined in ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... perfumed tablets, full of vows and raptures. No more toying with fingers at the circus. No more evening walks along the Tiber. No more hiding in chests or jumping from windows. I, the favoured suitor of half the white stoles in Rome, could never again aspire above a freed-woman. You a man of gallantry, and think of such a thing! For shame, my dear Coelius! Do not let Clodia ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... could not afford to exasperate his debtors; as they could have so easily retaliated by accusing him of Christianity. The wealthy disciple could not accept the office of a magistrate, for he would have thus only betrayed his creed; neither could he venture to aspire to any of the honours of the state, as his promotion would most certainly have aggravated the perils of his position. Our Saviour had said—"I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... Nations that aspire to be free incur a prominent danger,—the danger of deceiving themselves on the question of tyranny. They readily apply that name to any system of government that displeases or alarms them, or refuses to grant ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Dorset, I do not aspire, With notes so unhallowed as mine, To touch the sweet strings of thy beautiful lyre, Or covet the praise ...
— The Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast • Mr. Roscoe
... were no periury to make him know Hee is your Sonne, and sonnes a dutie owe. This sequestration will in time aspire Unto a flame shall set your Realme on fire; For[207] when a Subject hath the meanes of will, 'Tis not enough, to say he has no will; For will is alter'd by the place and time And hee that's once up knowes the way to clime. I speake perchance like a prophetique foole, But ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... Charles Sumner, in the office of Judge Story, a legal star of the first magnitude. He was counted one of the handsomest youths in Boston. There was nothing too bright or too hard for Wendell Phillips to aspire to, or hope for. At the critical moment, when he had to decide upon his future career, ambition sang to him, as to every noble youth. George William Curtis represents Phillips as sometimes forecasting the future, as he saw himself "succeeding ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Vain objects serve for dreadful rocks to quail My brittle boat from haven of life that flies To haunt the sea of mundane miseries. My soul that draws impressions from above, And views my course, and sees the winds aspire, Bids reason watch to scape the shoals of love; But lawless will enflamed with endless ire Doth steer empoop,[B] whilst reason doth retire. The streams increase; love's waves my bark do fill; Thus are they wracked that guide their course ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... miscontent. Now God forbid thou shouldst attain thy wishes! What care I If thou have looked on me a look that caused thee languishment? Who art thou, wretch, that thou shouldst hope to win me? With thy rhymes What wouldst of me? Thy reason, sure, with passion is forspent. If to my favours thou aspire and covet me, good lack! What leach such madness can assain or what medicament? Leave rhyming, madman that thou art, lest, bound upon the cross, Thou thy presumption in the stead of abjectness repent. Deem not, O youth, that I to thee incline; indeed, ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... begin at the beginning we must try to fall back on uninterpreted feeling, as the mystics aspire to do. We need not expect, however, to find peace there, for the immediate is in flux. Pure feeling rejoices in a logical nonentity very deceptive to dialectical minds. They often think, when they fall back on elements necessarily indescribable, ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... maiden, Ten thousand hearts aspire; In this life, sorrow-laden, Thee only they desire; In thee they hope for healing; In thee expect true rest, When thou, their safety sealing, Shalt clasp ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... to set about writing a History of Ireland, and archly remarked, there had been some good Irish writers, and that one Irishman might at least aspire to be equal to another. He had great compassion for the miseries and distresses of the Irish nation, particularly the Papists; and severely reprobated the barbarous debilitating policy of the British government, which, he said, was the most detestable mode of persecution. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Sir, my ambition made me always aspire to much higher things and so did the treatment which I always received from you heretofore; but now, that you talk of abandoning me to 'lie upon a hard bed,' and intimate that, unless I give up the object ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... desire, Thine eyes look forth from lofty soul; Contagious, then, my thoughts aspire To reach, with thee, thy ...
— Canada and Other Poems • T.F. Young
... made, as one may say, into cashiers. They receive appointments; the rank and file of engineers is made up of them; they are employed as captains of artillery; there is no (subaltern) grade to which they may not aspire. Finally, when these men, the pick of the youth of the nation, fattened on mathematics and stuffed with knowledge, have attained the age of fifty years, they have their reward, and receive as the price of their services the third-floor lodging, the wife and family, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... lieth, sublime, Out of Space—out of Time. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And chasms and caves and Titan woods, 10 With forms that no man can discover For the tears that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, 15 Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waters, lone and dead,— Their still waters, still and chilly With the snows of ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... chiefs of the eight petty states that compose the confederation of Boni, and he cannot decide on any public measure without their consent. In some of the states the office of chief is hereditary; in others any member of the privileged classes may aspire to the dignity, and it not infrequently happens that the state is governed by a woman. The Bugis have been Mahommedans since the 17th century. Their original form of nature-worship had been much affected by Hindu influences, and even now they retain rites connected with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... positive and certain intuition is the only form of knowledge which enables a man to work rapidly or reach his true and high estate, within the limit of his conscious effort. To obtain knowledge by experiment is too tedious a method for those who aspire to accomplish real work; he who gets it by certain intuition, lays hands on its various forms with supreme rapidity, by fierce effort of will; as a determined workman grasps his tools, indifferent to their weight or ...
— Light On The Path and Through the Gates of Gold • Mabel Collins
... matter how humble his origin, anyone of the male sex was eligible to compete in the examinations which were based upon literary knowledge and memory of the classics. Proficiency in handwriting was a natural result. The successful candidate might aspire to any post in the empire, as official positions were bestowed through literary merit. During three days and two nights at the time of examination the candidate was not allowed to leave his tiny box-like cell, lacking even space to lie down. ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... there was nothing to be undone: no chain for me to break or for him to drag; and I could go, please God, my lowly way along the path of duty, and he could go his nobler way upon its broader road; and though we were apart upon the journey, I might aspire to meet him, unselfishly, innocently, better far than he had thought me when I found some favour in his eyes, at ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Witch to exist in her dominions. So Tip's guardian, however much she might aspire to working magic, realized it was unlawful to be more than a Sorceress, or ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... is the very blossom of civilisation triumphant and hopeful; it would fain lead men to aspire towards perfection: each hope that it fulfils gives birth to yet another hope: it bears in its bosom the worth and the meaning of life and the counsel to strive to understand everything; to fear nothing and to hate nothing: in a word, 'tis the symbol and sacrament of the Courage ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... 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
... for almost any base proposal save this one. She knew that his cupidity and insolence stopped at nothing, but never did she imagine he would have the wild presumption to aspire to Madeleine's hand. ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... West, whose rivers are shallow and uncertain, the steamers are built to run on a heavy dew. Allowing for the joke, this is not more nice than wise. To be dexterous, fine-fingered, facile! How perfect is the response in all the petty personalities of politics! In this America, where all men aspire, and more men get office than one would think there were offices to get, what miracles of adroitness! It is one perpetual, Turn, turn again, Lord Mayor! If but half the genius were diverted from office-getting to house-building, what towering results! But since it ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... that nothing is so high and lofty to which Bucolicks may not successfully aspire. But if this be so, what will become of Macrobius, Georgius Valla, Julius Scaliger, Vossius, and the whole company of Grammarians? who all affirm that simplicity and meanness is so essential to Pastorals, ...
— De Carmine Pastorali (1684) • Rene Rapin
... America, this country is undone. I desire to be reckoned of the last age, and to be thought to have lived to be superannuated, preserving my senses only for myself and for the few I value. I cannot aspire to be traduced like Algernon Sydney, and content myself with sacrificing to him amongst my lares. Unalterable in my principles, careless about most things below essentials, indulging myself in trifles by system, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... son free to choose his own career; he might be a notary in Paris, king's-attorney in some district, collector of customs no matter where, broker, or post master, as he pleased. What fancy of his could they ever refuse him? to what position of life might he not aspire as the son of a man about whom the whole countryside, from Montargis to Essonne, was in the habit of saying, "Pere Minoret doesn't even know how ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... he's as fond of me as ever he was," she mused. "I suppose he's got some ridiculous notion about being too poor to aspire to me. Jed always had more pride than a Crane could carry. Well, I've done all I can—all I'm going to do. If Jed's determined to go, ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Vaekehu's 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 her days with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ruddy fire, To what more can man aspire? Eyes that shine with love aglow, Is there more ...
— All That Matters • Edgar A. Guest
... about these movements on the European chessboard, and upon what basis should she aspire to ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... catch, without their having any choice? And they really think that they choose ... the fools ... but it is we who choose ... always.... Just think, when one is not ugly, nor stupid, as is the case with us, all men aspire to us, all ... without exception. We look them over from morning till night, and when we have selected one, we fish for him...." "But that does not tell me how you do it?" "How I do it?... Why, I do nothing; I allow myself to be ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... scarcely less eminent in philosophy than in philology. The conversation consisted entirely of compliments till just before we separated, when the future editor inquired of me whether I had ever read Quintilian; and, on my replying in the negative, expressed his surprise that any gentleman should aspire to become a critic who had never read Quintilian, with the comfortable information, however, that he could supply me with a Quintilian at half-price, that is, a translation made by himself some years previously, of which he had, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... common frailties of our nature. I will therefore not disguise the fact, that I was highly gratified at my first election to Congress; yet I can truly say that my utmost ambition has been gratified. I aspire to nothing more, and shall retire from the exciting scenes of political strife to the quiet employments of my family and fireside, with still more satisfaction than I felt when first ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... of Cleveland marks an epoch. He was indeed a striking figure in American history. Take him all in all, we may not look upon his like again. The "good citizenship," an expression frequently on his lips, to which he would have his countrymen aspire, was of the noblest, and no man had a clearer or loftier conception of the responsible and sacred character of public station. With him the oft-quoted words, "A public office is a public trust," was no mere lip-service. His will ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... love of peace. He was only a few years the senior of the maiden, and of an obscure family compared with that of the famous Aishkwagon-ai-bee. But love levels all distinctions, and, impelled by an influence he could not withstand, he dared to aspire to the hand of Leelinau. Besides, there was one superiority he enjoyed which made the claim less presumptuous. Young as he was no hunter of the tribe could be compared with him in skill or daring. Other lodges ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... which Bernal had presently with Aunt Bell and two empty seats, his companion regaled him with comments upon the development of the religious instinct in mankind, reminding him that should he ever aspire to a cult of his own he would find Boston a more fertile ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... suspicion of acting and speaking with reference to the effect his acts and sayings may have had upon his claims for political preferment. If he should ever change his mind, however, no one has a better right than he has to aspire to anything within the gift of the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... subject that was always near to his heart, the mythology and early traditions of the Northern peoples. And after three years of struggle, he was at last ready to break away from Egelykke. If he had not yet conquered his passion, he had so far mastered it that he could aspire ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... when 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 ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... how it is!" with a contemptuous curl of the lip, "you aspire to the character of a good, dutiful wife,—to become an example of enduring patience to all the refractory conjugals in the place, myself among the rest. I understand it all. How amiable some people can be at the expense ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... quiet dwelling upon mysteries, are all lost if one has to stumble and run in a prescribed track. To follow a service with uplifted attention requires more mental agility than I possess; point after point is raised, and yet, if one pauses to meditate, to wonder, to aspire, one is lost, and misses the thread of the service. I suppose that there is or ought to be something in the united act of intercession. But I dislike all public meetings, and think them a waste of time. I should make an ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... many severe fights, and at great expense of life; but neither of the advantages expected from it was ever realized. In the field, Cordova was not efficient; he lacked resource and promptitude; and the command of a division was the very utmost to which his military talents entitled him to aspire. As before mentioned, however, his confidence and pretensions were unbounded, his partisans numerous, and the event of this day's fight was such as greatly to increase the former, and raise the admiration ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... young women were busy over the very beautiful work by which flowers and other devices were represented by inlaying different coloured marbles and semi-precious stones in black and white, so as to make tables, slabs, and letter-weights, and brooches for those who could not aspire to the most splendid and ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the ...
— Poems of William Blake • William Blake
... Tenderness and Imagination, which, in the sense he used Imagination, was not the characteristic of Shakspeare, but which Milton possessed in a degree far exceeding other Poets; which union, as the highest species of poetry, and chiefly deserving that name, "he was most proud to aspire to;" then illustrating the said union by two quotations from his own second volume (which I had been so unfortunate as to miss.) First specimen; A father addresses ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... gain of creation consists always in the growth of individual minds, which live and aspire, as flowers bloom and birds sing, in the midst of morasses; and in the continual development of that thought, the thought of human destiny, which is given to eternity adequately to express, and which ages of failure only seemingly impede. ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... its tail in the mud?" "It would rather be alive and wagging its tail in the mud," said the officials. "Begone" said Chung. "The tortoise is a symbol of longevity and great wisdom. It would not befit me to aspire to greater wisdom than the tortoise. I, too, prefer ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... 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
... steadily, calmly, and prosperously advancing its career, a model of order and reason, and the hive from which swarms of industrious, hardy and enlightened yeomen have since spread themselves over a surface so vast, as to create an impression that they still aspire to the possession of the immense regions included ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... had their office. Though they to-day are passed, They marched in that procession where is no first or last; Though cold is now their hoping, though they no more aspire, They too had once their ardour—they handed on ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... to call in to its aid the powerful influence of religion, and to obtain from the Peninsula fresh supplies of missionaries. As in their nature the latter are essentially different from the other public functionaries, it is well known they neither seek nor aspire to any remuneration for their labors, their only hope being to obtain, in the opinion of the community at large, that degree of respect to which they justly consider themselves entitled. Let, therefore, their pre-eminences be retained to them: let them be treated with decorum; ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... 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 ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Pringle being much stuck-up. He maketh a speech. Meditations while Pringle is making a speech. The grass is very green. (Great laughter at Pringle's expense.) I will aspire up Telson thinketh he is much, but thou ist not oh, Telson, much at all I spoke boldly and to the point. I am ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... confined its membership principally to free negroes, as those who were yet in physical bondage were supposed to have aspirations for nothing higher than being released from chains, and were, therefore, not prepared to eagerly aspire to the enjoyment of the highest privileges of freedom. When the War of Secession was over and all negroes were free, the society began to cautiously spread its membership among the emancipated. They conducted a campaign ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... Mississippi Regiment, on the field of Buena Vista? He was justly entitled to the applause of the restorer of victory to the arms of the Union. Gentlemen, in our country, in this day, such a man, such a master of the art of war, so daring in the field, such a man may not only aspire to the highest places in the executive government of the Union, but such a man may acquire what nowhere else, since the days of Cimon and Miltiades, of the Cincinnati and the Cornelii of Athens and of Rome, has been done by the human race, the combination of eminent powers, of intellectual ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... 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
... then served for the principal high-road betwixt London and Westminster; for few ventured on horseback through the narrow and crowded streets of the city, and coaches were then a luxury reserved only for the higher nobility, and to which no citizen, whatever was his wealth, presumed to aspire. The beauty of the banks, especially on the northern side, where the gardens of the nobility descended from their hotels, in many places, down to the water's edge, was pointed out to Nigel by his kind ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... it is that each should guard his lips, chasten his pen, and aspire to simplicity of speech. No more perversion of sense, circumlocution, reticence, tergiversation! these things serve only to complicate and bewilder. Be men; speak the speech of honor. An hour of plain-dealing does more for the salvation of the ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... this be true of Poetry—if Homer and Shakespeare are what they are, from the absence of everything didactic about them—may we not thus learn something of what History should be, and in what sense it should aspire to teach? ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... now. He might not presume to speak to her until properly presented—nor even then to refer to what had passed or so much as intimate that they had met before. . . And yet had not Gloucester himself bade him be not so humble—that his birth was equal to her own? Why should he not aspire . . . why not seek her favor . . . what more favorable conditions would he ever know than now? How extraordinary it was that she should be in Pontefract—the length of England from where he saw her last. Surely the Fates were kind to him! And had she recognized him? ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... has existed, been the cause of freedom. If it is this principle, that has always prompted the princes and nobles of the earth, by every species of fraud and violence, to shake off all the limitations of their power; it is the same that has always stimulated the common people to aspire at independency, and to endeavour at confining the power of the great, within the ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... Dutch maintained their independence in the sixteenth century against the most formidable regular army in Europe, and also did their fair share of fighting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they have long ceased to aspire to the rank of a military Power. The separation from Belgium in 1830-31 put an end to the Orange policy of creating a powerful Netherland State from Lorraine to the North Sea which could hold its own with either France or Prussia, and since that period Holland has gradually sunk, and seemingly ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... of wretched children are bent and their bones broken by jugglers when they train them. Bertrand himself felt an adoration for her surpassing ordinary human passion. When he reached the summit of a happiness to which in his wildest dreams he had never dared to aspire, the young count nearly lost his reason. In vain had his father, Charles of Artois (who was Count of Aire, a direct descendant of Philip the Bold, and one of the regents of the kingdom), attempted by severe admonitions to stop him while yet on the brink ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - JOAN OF NAPLES—1343-1382 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... 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 ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... vouchsafe me an Audience of Quarter of an Hour; I shall look upon it as the greatest Condescension in you, and as the greatest Honour done me. I told him he mistook my Title, and gave me one I never did aspire to; but that I was very ready to hear and serve him, for I had seen him often at Court offering Petitions, which were always rejected, and I had a Compassion ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... pockets, and had no reason to expect they would ever have much more, but they knew that as long as they lived they would have everything that they wanted, that the captain thought was good for them, and to a higher earthly paradise their souls did not aspire. Cheditafa would serve his mistress, Maka would serve the captain, and Mok would wear fine clothes and serve his young master Ralph, whenever, haply, he should ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... her charms, could not aspire to become one of the Forest set, though she had hopes she might be reckoned a descendant from the famous Roses so well known in the reigns of some of our Henrys, Edwards, and Richard III., though she assuredly was of a very different extraction; indeed, it was said that she ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... return; he had also gained such a power over her, that she had agreed to conceal their attachment from her father; as Ramsay wished first, he asserted, to be possessed of a certain property which he daily expected would fall to him, and, until that, he did not think that he had any right to aspire to the ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a knowledge of the game of euchre—your neighbor." Couple this with utter indifference to the rights of fellow-soldiers, and a catlike capacity to work by stealth in the dark, and there is no starry altitude to which one may not aspire. Harris made the same mistake older soldiers had sometimes made in higher commands, that of sticking to their own men, and duties, without keeping an eye on, and a friend at, headquarters. Anomalous as it may sound, the absent are ever wrong, ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... part in the Republic than can be played by men of closed minds or of unthinking habits or by organized ignorance. We aspire again to a share in the constructive work of the government in these stirring days of great tasks at home and growing ...
— The South and the National Government • William Howard Taft
... eyes,— To win a heaven on earth,—a Paradise? Each day do we not see, for smaller gain, Great captains brave the dangers of the main? For glory's empty bubble thousands perish, Above all treasures your fair hand I cherish; Your heart and not your throne, is my desire; Condemn me not if madly I aspire. ...
— Turandot: The Chinese Sphinx • Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
... came. Her view coincided with his own; she recommended him to take the opportunity, and pointed out that with his growing legal reputation there was no office in the State to which he might not aspire, when he had once proved himself a capable member of Parliament. Geoffrey read the letter through; then immediately sat down and wrote to his friend the whip, accepting the ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... pause to listen to a sentence or two: "True eloquence indeed does not consist in speech.... Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it.... Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it.... The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives and the fate of their wives and their children and their country hang on the decision of the hour. ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... honour among them than in our country—an advantage that results naturally from the form of their government. There are about eight hundred persons in England who have a right to speak in public, and to support the interest of the kingdom; and near five or six thousand may in their turns aspire to the same honour. The whole nation set themselves up as judges over these, and every man has the liberty of publishing his thoughts with regard to public affairs, which shows that all the people ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry Topping stands ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... Grenada, heir to the Spanish throne, imprisoned by order of the Crown for fear he would aspire to the throne, was kept in solitary confinement in the old prison at the Palace of Skulls, Madrid. After thirty-three years in this living tomb, death came to his release, and the following remarkable researches, taken from the Bible, and marked with ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... him sat his assistant, the bachelor, who was going through his training for a professorship. The chair of theology was the most coveted honor of the university, and was reached only by a long course of study and searching examinations, to which no one could aspire but the most learned and gifted of the doctors. The students sat around on benches, or on the straw. There were no writing-desks. The teaching was oral, principally by questions and answers. Neither the master nor the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... prospects in the Order, a penniless young knight, without home or estate, without even a place in my country, and that country not hers. I know that it is not only sinful, but mad, for me to think so frequently of her, but at least I am not mad enough to think that I can either win the heart or aspire to the hand of one who is, you say, so beautiful, and who is, moreover, as I know, the heiress ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... Friendly.) How! how! presumptious Youth! How are thy Eyes and Thoughts exalted? ha! To Bliss your Majesty must never hope for, (reply'd Goodland.) How now! thou Creature of the basest Mold! Not hope for what thou dost aspire to! Mock-King; thou canst not, dar'st not, shalt not hope it: (return'd Valentine in a heat.) Hold, Val, (cry'd Sir Philip) you grow warm, forget your Duty to their Majesties, and abuse your Friends, by making ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... our dreams. America believes, America is ready, America can win the race to the future—and we shall. The American dream is a song of hope that rings through night winter air; vivid, tender music that warms our hearts when the least among us aspire to the greatest things: to venture a daring enterprise; to unearth new beauty in music, literature, and art; to discover a new universe inside a tiny silicon chip or ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ronald Reagan • Ronald Reagan
... yet nobler game, to the hunting of which Hawkins and his younger associate aspire; both being eager to add it to the list of their trophies. It is that which has tempted many an English Nimrod to take three thousand miles of sea voyage across the Atlantic, and by land nearly as ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... replied. "Hand it over." I regarded the carrying of that suit-case as a symbol of my new way of life. I hoped that when we arrived at the Farm, Anne might see me carrying it, and realise that even a writer of foolish comedies, who was well off and belonged to the Jervaises' class, might aspire to be the ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... 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 ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... on whatever we do with our mind, in our own little way, will depend the measure of success and happiness to which we may aspire. Success is not attained without effort, but every little effort we expend will help wonderfully in the task. Train your mind to think just, kind, good thoughts. Do not dwell upon the bad side of any problem, search for ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... that civilization is the correct thing for mortals to aspire to. As a boy, while I hated it with a bitter hatred, I accepted it as inevitable because my elders approved it and because it seemed indissolubly linked to the school, the church and the things of good repute. As I grow older ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... idea of expending in useless waste and vain luxuries, the fruits of prosperous labour; they are employed in establishing their sons and in many other useful purposes: strangers to the honours of monarchy they do not aspire to the possession of affluent fortunes, with which to purchase sounding titles, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... se disloque, on finit par avoir La goutte aux reins, l'entorse aux pieds, aux mains l'ampoule, Si bien qu'etant parti vautour, on revient poule. Je desire un bonnet de nuit. Foin du cimier! J'ai tant de gloire, o roi, que j'aspire au fumier. ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... is also the name of the sixth month of the Maya calendar. Axul would therefore be thy end. Among all the nations which have recognized the existence of a SUPREME BEING, Deity has been considered as the beginning and end of all things, to which all aspire ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... may be added to the preceding pair: Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new 'set' to ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... owne crownes. At a word, whatsoeuer happines can be in that ambition promiseth, is but suffering much ill, to get ill. Men thinke by dayly climing higher to plucke themselues out of this ill, and the height wherevnto they so painefully aspire, is the height of misery it selfe. I speake not heere of the wretchednes of them, who all their life haue held out their cap to receiue the almes of court fortune, and can get nothing, often with incredible heart griefe, seeing some by lesse ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... I had now learned how to govern my conduct, having schooled myself, for the sake of my mother's peace of mind, to keep out of trouble, often against my natural impulses. Thus both Phil and I might aspire to Margaret; and, moreover, 'twas like that her father would provide well for her if she found a husband to his approval. It did not then occur to me that my employment in the English service might be against me in ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... man can better expound my doings than your Lordship, which maketh me need to say the less. Only I humbly pray you to believe that I aspire to the conscience and commendation first of bonus civis, which with us is a good and true servant to the Queen, and next of bonus vir, that is an honest man. I desire your Lordship also to think that though I confess I love some things much better than ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... 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. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... word I think," said Juliet quietly. "Why should a paid companion aspire to be any higher in the social scale than a village schoolmaster? Do you think ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... my audience there are some students who aspire to become historians. To these especially ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... 1862, that Lord Robert Cecil said in Parliament: "The plain fact is that the Northern States of America can never be our sure friends, because we are rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to the same position. We both aspire to the government of the seas. We are both manufacturing people, and, in every port as well as at every court we are rivals of each other.... With the Southern States ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... received intelligence that the king of Navarre has this very day declared himself favourable to the Prince's love, and that a number of fresh troops will reinforce his army, ready to be employed in the service of her to whom his wishes aspire. As for me, I am surprised ...
— Don Garcia of Navarre • Moliere
... subtlest arguments of its enemies cannot impeach. That one grand, rounded life, full-orbed with intellectual and moral glory, is worth, as the product of Christianity, more than all the dogmas of all the teachers. The youth of America who aspire to promote their own and their country's welfare should never cease to gaze upon his great example, or to remember that the brightest gems in the crown of his immortality, the qualities which uphold ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... their usefulness. They are honest, painstaking, thoroughly reliable, according to their lights. They do excellent journeyman work. But there lies the heart of the whole matter.—Are you content to do journeyman work only; or do you aspire to something greater?—If the former, then you had best forget me and all I have told you this evening as fast as possible. For it will prove a hindrance rather than a help, confusing the issues.—No—no—listen ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... it has been conundrums like these that have taxed human ingenuity and made of life such an alluring adventure. On the conquering of difficulties civilization has been built up. Well, man now attacked this problem of telling time. He did not aspire to narrow it down to any very fine point, for at that period of history one day was very like another, and he was a leisurely being with little to do but eat, sleep, fight or hunt. Notwithstanding this, however, he did want ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... together these corporeal parts, which were as far divided as one opposite is divided from another; so that these intellectual powers which, through his action he has extinguished, should not be left quite dead, but be again re-animated and made to aspire on high? When, I say, will he fully comfort me, and give my powers free and speedy flight, by which means my substance may go and nestle there, where, by my efforts, I may make amends and correct my ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... that these pretended warriors, whose bloodless swords had rusted in their scabbards, would attempt to snatch the staff of command from the veteran generals of France; and that nobles who had grown old in sloth and ignorance would aspire to the direction ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... away by the general enthusiasm, nodded all sparkling to Compton, and that made his heart beat and his soul aspire. So next over he claimed his rights, and took the ball. Luck still befriended him: he bowled four wickets in twelve overs; the wicket-keeper stumped a fifth: the rest were "the tail," and disposed of for a few runs, and the total was no more ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... justice, than for his military skill. This obtained him the office of leader and founder of two colonies which were sent into the cities of Narnia and Cossa; which filled him with loftier hopes, and made him aspire to step over those previous honors which it was usual first to pass through, the offices of tribune of the people, praetor and aedile, and to level his aim immediately at the consulship. Having these colonies, and all their interest ready at his service, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... him rise to that station of honor, which he now believes will satisfy him, and his ambition would aspire to one more exalted. Let him govern one kingdom, and he would desire to subjugate another till the whole world bowed to his nod. And were every star an inhabited world, and did he possess means to invade them, his ambition would continue to soar till he ruled ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... the right hand of the greatest minister we have had since the peace. Though he holds a fine position, he is good enough to be my tutor in the science of politics; he teaches me to conduct affairs and feeds me with his experience, when all the while he might aspire to a much better situation. Oh! he is worth far more than I." At a gesture from Modeste he continued gracefully: "Yes, the poetry that I express he carries in his heart; and if I speak thus openly before him it is because he has the ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... men of above forty who aspire to respectability and do actually live orderly lives and achieve even the odor of sanctity—have we not been stained with murder?—aye worse! What man has not his Bluebeard closet, full of early ...
— The Delicious Vice • Young E. Allison
... made a fearful example of the kinsmen of his predecessor, four of whom he executed chiefly for the reason that they had been advanced by papal influence. This salutary example practically put an end to nepotism; at least the unfortunate nephews of Paul IV were the last to aspire to independent principalities solely on the strength of ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... my dear people at home some idea of the beauties we have out here," exclaimed D'Arcy, who happened to look in the day Sophy had finished her sketch. "I should be so thankful if you could make a copy for me; still more so if I might aspire to possess ...
— The Log House by the Lake - A Tale of Canada • William H. G. Kingston
... making 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 ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... another affront was offered to Queensberry. In the late session he had held the office of Lord High Commissioner, and had in that capacity represented the majesty of the absent King. This dignity, the greatest to which a Scottish noble could aspire, was now transferred to the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... mutual dissimulation. The love I once felt for her she has herself deliberately killed. I had a lover—she took him. I had faith in life, in honour, and in friendship. She destroyed all. A thief—she has dared to aspire to him! And you condoned her fault. You, with your craven restoration of her booty, thought the matter cleared and her a fit mate for a man of ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... social perversion has been exploited and popularized by various sectarians, who, while copying Rousseau, reject with all their might the anti-social philosophy of that writer, without perceiving that, by the very fact that they aspire to reform society, they are as unsocial or unsociable as he. It is a curious spectacle to see these pseudo-innovators, condemning after Jean Jacques monarchy, democracy, property, communism, thine and mine, monopoly, wages, police, taxation, luxury, commerce, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... heart to know the worst, doubting I had at last been caught by a stratagem, ending in my ruin. His joyful surprise to find how happy I was likely to be. All the hopes given me, answered by the private celebration of our nuptials—an honour so much above all that my utmost ambition could make me aspire to, and which I never can deserve! Your ladyship's arrival, and anger, not knowing I was actually married, but supposing me a vile wicked creature; in which case I should have deserved the worst of usage. Mr. B.'s angry lessons to me, for daring to interfere; though I thought in the tenderest ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... great on the subject of dukes and marquises. She was seldom so low in health as to condescend to a "hearl," and there had even been a moment when she got herself to believe that royalty might aspire to her hand. ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade
... language, without an acquaintance with which I shall be shut out from one of the most beautiful departments of letters.... The fact is—and I will not disguise it in the least, for I think I ought not—the fact is, I most eagerly aspire after future eminence in literature; my whole soul burns most ardently for it, and every earthly thought centres in it.... Whether Nature has given me any capacity for knowledge or not, she has at any rate given me a very strong predilection ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... 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 ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... If it is a necessity of Art to do so, why then those critics are right who hold that Art is exhausted and the world too worn out for poetry. I do not, for my part, believe this: and I believe the so-called necessity of Art to be the mere feebleness of the artist. Let us all aspire rather to Life, and let the dead bury their dead. If we have but courage to face these conventions, to touch this low ground, we shall take strength from it instead of losing it; and of that, I am intimately persuaded. For there is poetry everywhere; the 'treasure' (see the old fable) lies all ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... her counter, sorting silks. Not rich piece silks that are made into gowns; Mrs. Duff's shop did not aspire to that luxurious class of goods; but humble skeins of mixed sewing-silks, that were kept tied up in a piece of wash-leather. Mrs. Duff's head and a customer's head were brought together over the bundle, endeavouring to fix upon a skein of a particular ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... Australia; and a tenderly loving letter it is, indicating the harmonious relations between father and son. It expresses the hope that the two (Alfred and "Plorn") "may become proprietors," and "aspire to the first positions in the colony without casting off the old connection," and thus concludes:—"From Mr. Bear I had the best accounts of you. I told him that they did not surprise me, for I had unbounded faith in you. For which take my love and blessing." Sad to say, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... and comeliness, but they want majesty. They can express a human form in all the graces, sweetness, and elegancy, but, they miss the authority. They can hit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express roughness or gravity. Others aspire to truth so much as they are rather lovers of likeness than beauty. Zeuxis and Parrhasius are said to be contemporaries; the first found out the reason of lights and shadows in picture, the other ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson
... Lionel much of the wayward and morbid irritability of his boyish pride; but the high spirit, the generous love of independence, the scorn of mercenary calculation, were strong as ever; these were in the grain of his nature. In common with all who in youth aspire to be one day noted from the "undistinguishable many," Lionel had formed to himself a certain ideal standard, above the ordinary level of what the world is contented to call honest, or esteem clever. He admitted into his estimate ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must be troubled that it may wake and aspire—then troubled still, that it may hold fast, be itself, ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... not so, dearest and sweetest of earth's fairest flowers. Would I aspire? You are a star set high above me in a royal heaven; I am only—myself. Yet I am a man, and I have a heart to do and dare. I have no title save that of an uncrowned sovereign; but I have an arm and ...
— Options • O. Henry
... to leave his pillar; nor did he consider this undertaking as any thing great or singular, by which he should appear distinguished from others. By humility he looked upon himself as justly banished from among men and hidden from the world in Christ. No one is to practise or aspire after virtue or perfection upon a motive of greatness, or of being exalted by it. This would be to fall into the snare of pride, which is to be feared under the cloak of sanctity itself. The foundation of Christian perfection is a love of humiliation, a sincere spirit of humility. ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... state; that her population does not exceed half a million of souls; and that more than one half are not of the European race. The facts are so. I know she never can be a great state, and that the only distinction to which she can aspire must be based on the moral and intellectual acquirements of her sons. To the development of these much of her attention has been directed; but this restrictive system, which has so unjustly exacted the proceeds of her ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... myself to be then I will teach others & if I gain but one proselyte—if I can teach but one other mind what is the beauty which they ought to love—and what is the sympathy to which they ought to aspire what is the true end of their being—which must be the true end of that of all men then shall I be satisfied & think I ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley |
