"Aspire" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... over seventy years of age can claim to be excused from acting as guardian or curator, and by the older law persons less than twentyfive were similarly exempted. But our constitution, having forbidden the latter to aspire to these functions, has made excuses unnecessary. The effect of this enactment is that no pupil or person under twentyfive years of age is to be called to a statutory guardianship; for it was most incongruous to place persons under the guardianship or administration of those who are known themselves ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... men who, employing symbolical forms borrowed principally from the mason's trade and from architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving morally to ennoble themselves and others, and thereby to bring about a universal league of mankind, which they aspire to exhibit even now ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... an experience as genuine religion, and it is the most blessed estate that a soul can aspire to. There is a place for prayer in the divine economy of God's providence. But neither religion nor prayer can help a soul that is sick unto death with the malady of doubt. "Dodd" was thus circumstanced. It was ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... to her foibles, with which woman has been accustomed to be treated, and which have made her either the slave, the toy, or the ridicule of man; and it is getting to see that she is at least of as much relative importance as man; that without her he will in vain aspire to rise; that, by a law as infallible as that which moves and regulates the spheres, his condition is determined by hers; that wherever she has been a slave, he has been a tyrant, and that all oppression and injustice practised upon her has been sure in the end to rebound ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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 be ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... masterly treatises on the subject which have from time to time appeared, or to take the place of exhaustive histories, such as that of Professor Leonello Venturi on the Italian primitives. It should but serve to pave the way to deeper and more detailed reading. It does not aspire to give a complete and comprehensive list of the painters; some of the minor ones may not even be mentioned. The mere inclusion of names, dates, and facts would add unduly to the size of the book, and, when without real bearing ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... prejudice had erected round the pulpit, the bar, and the bench. From the same cause there was very little encouragement to acquire property, to seek education, to labor for the graces of cultivated manners, or even to aspire to ordinary respectability, since not even the poor favor of social intercourse with the whites, of participating in the civilities and courtesies of every day ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... 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 ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... 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 ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson
... philosophy could never do: it shews the equal dealings of heaven to the happy and the unhappy, and levels all human enjoyments to nearly the same standard. It gives to both rich and poor the same happiness hereafter, and equal hopes to aspire after it; but if the rich have the advantage of enjoying pleasure here, the poor have the endless satisfaction of knowing what it was once to be miserable, when crowned with endless felicity hereafter; and even though this should be called a small advantage, yet being an eternal ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... in itself, meritorious; and, in common with many sects, he regarded the highest life as the life of the mendicant teacher. His doctrine of poverty passed on into the Church that bears his name, and one of the three vows taken by those who aspire to lead "the angelic life" is the vow of poverty. The mendicant friars of the Middle Ages, the "sturdy beggars," are the lineal descendants of the Eastern mendicants, and are the fruits of the morality taught by Christ. On this ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... 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
... the radical moisture and fountain-head from whence every laudable and worthy enterprise issues forth." To think meanly of one's self, is to sink in one's own estimation as well as in the estimation of others. And as the thoughts are, so will the acts be. Man cannot aspire if he looks down; if he will rise, he must look up. The very humblest may be sustained by the proper indulgence of this feeling. Poverty itself may be lifted and lighted up by self-respect; and it is truly a noble sight to see a poor man hold ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... as Renan says in his posthumous work, that there will always be materialists and spiritualists, inasmuch as it will always be observable on the one hand that there is no thought without brain, while, on the other hand, instincts of man will always aspire to higher beliefs. But this is just what ought to be if religion is true, and we are in a state of probation. And is it not probable that the materialistic position (discredited even by philosophy) is due simply to custom ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... the sempiternal loveliness of figures who stood with raised arms, by the streams of Paradise. It seemed a profanation to turn from these aspirations to the enjoyment of material love, and Evelyn looked at Ulick questioningly. But he said that life only became wrong when it ceased to aspire. In an Indian temple, it had once been asked who was the most holy man of all. A young saint who had not eaten for ten days had been pointed out, but he said that the holiest man who ever lived stood yonder. It was then noticed that the man pointed to was drunk ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... ten I was sent to a well-known school at Cheam, in Surrey, the master of which, Dr. Mayo, has turned out some very distinguished pupils, of whom I was not fated to be one; for, after a year or so of futile attempt on my part to learn something, and give promise that I might aspire to the woolsack or the premiership, I was pronounced hopeless; and having declared myself anxious to emulate the deeds of Nelson, and other celebrated sailors, it was decided that I should enter the navy, and steps were taken to send me at once ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... lads of the fancy I needs must aspire To be quite au fait; and I have scarcely seen Of mills half a score, ere I'm fore'd to retire— O thou greenest among all the green ones, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... loudly. Carson's thin face was beaming. Even Mrs. Carson's face had lost some of its tension. Sommers could watch her manner from his position in the upper hall. She was dismissing a minor guest with a metallic smile. 'To aspire to this!' he murmured unconsciously. 'This, the ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... Midsummer. You may commit a greater evil, to guard against a less which is merely contingent, and may never happen. You may do what you have done a century ago in Ireland, make the Catholics worse than Helots, because you suspected that they might hereafter aspire to be more than fellow citizens; rendering their sufferings certain from your jealousy, while yours were only doubtful from their ambition; an ambition sure to be excited by the very measures which were taken ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... wits to an admiration of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts, indeed, stony and beastly people, so among the Romans were Livius Andronicus, and Ennius; so in the Italian language, the first that made it to aspire to be a treasure-house of science, were the poets Dante, Boccace, and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower and Chaucer; after whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent foregoing, others have followed to beautify ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... admire The snug domestic fire, The comfortable hearth, the glowing coals, Nor in the least aspire To emulate those strong heroic souls Who get up while it's dark And haste to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 19, 1919 • Various
... images important and useful, but when we come to consider the phenomena of the astral plane we begin to see what an important part is played there by strong mental images or visualized ideas. The better you know what you desire, wish or aspire to, the stronger will be your thought vibrations of that thing, of course. Well, then, the stronger that you are able to picture the thing in your mind—to visualize it to yourself—the stronger will be your actual knowledge and thought-form of that thing. Instead ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... the artless praise, Which due to worth like thine the Muse bestows, Who with prophetic extasy surveys These early wreaths of fame adorn thy brows. Aspire like Nassau in the glorious strife, Keep thy great fires' examples full in eye; But oh! for Britain's sake, consult a life The noblest triumphs are too mean to buy; And while you purchase glory—bear in mind, A prince's truest fame is to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... reminded Kassandane. "A woman must submit with humility to her quiet destiny, and not aspire to imitate ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... never dreamed that these pretended warriors, whose bloodless swords had rusted in their scabbards, would attempt to snatch the staff of command from the veteran generals of France; and that nobles who had grown old in sloth and ignorance would aspire to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... of crime, the new methods of 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 ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... to the time when they should be numbered among those brave soldiers, whose arms had maintained for a long series of years the supremacy of the crescent. There was no rank, no dignity in the Turkish army to which a Janissary could not aspire—a strong incentive to the display of bravery. Such was the constitution of the army when it was the most powerful in Europe: then it gained its victories, not by force of numbers, but by superior military discipline and valor. In the middle of the nineteenth century the capture ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... 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, ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper
... honors and delights, Distrustful days and sleepless nights, To struggle, suffer and aspire, Like Israel, led by ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... you, 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
... brought from far. Labor and learning may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshaled in every way, but they cannot compass it. It must exist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting of volcanic fires, with ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... joys in his union with poverty that he held it for proven that one needed only to be a man to aspire after the same happiness, and that the Saracens would be converted in crowds to the gospel of Jesus, if only it were announced to them in all its simplicity. He therefore quitted Portiuncula for this new kind of crusade. It is not known from what port he embarked. It was probably in the autumn ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... from which only a year ago they were wont to sally forth on the passing caravans. When they were exterminated by the government, the head of their chief, with its dangling queue, was mounted on a pole near-by, and preserved in a cage from birds of prey, as a warning to all others who might aspire to the same notoriety. In this lonely spot we were forced to spend the night, as here occurred, through the carelessness of the Kuldja Russian blacksmith, a very serious break in one of our gear wheels. It was too late in the day to walk back the sixteen miles to ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... bright-coloured pigments. The idea of representation fascinates you, but in your case it's representation in oils—or do you practise water-colours and pastel too? You even go much further than I, for I study my art of predilection only in the works of others. I don't aspire to leave works of my own. You're a painter, possibly a great one; but I'm not an actor." Nick Dormer declared he would certainly become one—he was so well on the way to it; and Sherringham, without heeding this charge, went on: "Let me add that, ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... scarce and difficultly attainable in Chili, their talents have no opportunity of being developed, and are mostly employed in trifling pursuits; and as the expence of printing is enormous, they are discouraged from literary exertion, so that few among them aspire to the reputation of becoming authors. The knowledge of the civil and canon law is held in high estimation, so that many of the youth of Chili, after completing their academical education in their own country, proceed to Lima to study ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... "Oxford English Dictionary" has not yet unfolded the last of its coils, which yet are ample enough to enfold us in seven words for every three an active man can grapple with. Yet the warning has point, and a particular point, for those who aspire to write poetry: as Francis Thompson has noted in his Essay ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... transition from an order of things in which everything belonged to individuals, to another in which everything was to belong to the nation. That night changed the face of the kingdom; it made all Frenchmen equal; all might now obtain public employments; aspire to the idea of property of their own, of exercising industry for their own benefit. That night was a revolution as important as the insurrection of the 14th of July, of which it was the consequence. It made the people masters of society, as the other had made them masters of the government, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... George upon a thousand points; was always for the advice that seemed palatable to the Prince, no matter if it was good or bad; and seems upon the whole (like the gambler he was all through life) to have had less regard to the chances of the campaign than to the greatness of favour he might aspire to, if, by any luck, it should succeed. For the rest, he did very well in the field; no one questioned that: for he ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to aspire to the second prizes; to be a profound interpreter and commenter, to be a sharp champion and defender, to be a methodical compounder and abridger. And this is the unfortunate succession of wits which the world hath yet had, whereby the patrimony of all knowledge goeth not on husbanded ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... the beginning, Paine did not aspire to be the political Prometheus of England. He rather looked to the Whig party and to Mr. Burke as the leaders in such a movement. As for himself, a veteran reformer from another hemisphere, he was willing to serve as a volunteer in the campaign against the oppressors ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... dreams of going back to England to fill some great railway post, but he had reached his sixties and his dreams were over. Often, when we talked familiarly together, he would say: "Joseph, if you aspire to be a general manager in England you ought never to have come to Ireland. They don't think much on the other side of Irish railways or Irish railway men." This, I daresay, was true, though he, well known, liked and admired as he was, ought to have been ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... ideas and identity of purpose which exist between us might be the trustworthy sign of a spiritual bond which we could not afford to ignore. I feel that without you the joy and power of my life will be incomplete. With you at my side I shall aspire to great things. You are to me the embodiment of what is charming and ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... are a Carol, my boy," he said; "remember that you come of an unalloyed descent, and that your scutcheon bears the motto Cil est nostre; with such arms you may hold your head high everywhere, and aspire to queens. Render grace to your father, as I to mine. We owe it to the honor of our ancestors, kept stainless until now, that we can look all men in the face, and need bend the knee to none save a mistress, the King, and God. This is the greatest of ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... in a poet-fire, We see thy woman-heart beat evermore Through the large flame. Beat purer, heart, and higher, Till God unsex thee on the heavenly shore Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire! ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... too, that you make the objects of your pursuit in all cases square with justice. Let your purposes be unvarying, nor be presumptuous to your equals. Beware lest you fall into the company of boisterous talking and strong drinking men, such as aspire to the control of the nation at this day; and, though they may not have been many months in the country, kindly condescend to teach us how to live. Also let those who most busy themselves with making presidents for us keep other company than yours, for their ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... entitled to any more attention than her loveliness and ladylike conduct will command. Those who are most pleasing will receive the most attention, and those who desire more should aspire to acquire more by cultivating those graces and virtues which ennoble woman, but no lady should lower or distort her own true ideal, or smother and crucify her conscience, in order to please any living man. A good man will ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... laughter of the Turk, Mae Thurston's welcome, experiments in the physics laboratory. And he was sure that he was progressing toward the state of grace in which he might aspire ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... worthy hosts, attempt to describe the inexpressible distress which seized my soul at seeing myself thus deserted. There are some philosophers who aspire to triumph over human feelings, and consider all tender affections as disgraceful weaknesses; for my part, I have never pretended to that degree in insensibility. I have, indeed, opposed as criminal that habitual acquiescence in sorrow which renders us unfit for the discharge ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... manifest to the world, where it is held in check by such bonds as have been mentioned. Everyone can see examples of this in potentates and kings who are subject to no such restraints and bonds, but rush on and subjugate provinces and kingdoms so far as they are successful, and aspire to power and glory without limit; and still more strikingly in the Babylon of this day, which has extended its dominion into heaven, and has transferred to itself all the Divine power of the Lord, and continually lusts for more. That such men, when they have entered after ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... object to be attained in these cases is a transfer of the conceptions, notions, or theories of writers from languages which we do not understand to one which we do; and therefore the best translator is he who has absolutely no higher aim than this, and does not aspire to make his task a stalking-horse for his own ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... yet no shadows blur the magic light, The glamour that surrounds the opening date. Illusions yet undashed my soul excite And of success in luring whispers prate. I see myself in form; my thoughts aspire To reach the giddy summit of desire. Lovers and such may sing a roundelay, Whate'er that be, to greet returning May; For me, not much—the season's all too short; I hear the mower hum and scent the fray. Cricket in sooth is Sovran King ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various
... talk of spiritual things; indeed, of them he was ignorant, professing no interest in relation to the working out of abstruse questions, either of philosophy or theology. He had no taste or capacity for such inquiries. Hence, he did not aspire to throw any new light on the great problems of human condition and destiny; nor did he speculate, like the Ionian philosophers, on the creation or end of things. He was not troubled about the origin or destiny ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... 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 leisure to meditate upon ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... eight sergeants, twenty corporals, one hundred and seventeen "first-class policemen," and one hundred and sixteen "policemen" (West Indian negroes without exception, though none but an American citizen could aspire to any white position); not to mention five clerks at headquarters, who are quite worth the mentioning. "Policemen" wore the same uniform as "first-class" officers, with khaki-covered helmet instead of "Texas" ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... has been 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 in their ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... parties equally, seem to have thought that this would have been the best result for the state. But the accounts of both, though they are very different writers, agree in their scorn of the leaders of the White Guelfs. They were upstarts, purse-proud, vain, and coarse-minded; and they dared to aspire to an ambition which they were too dull and too cowardly to pursue, when the game was in their hands. They wished to rule; but when they might, they were afraid. The commons were on their side, the moderate men, the party of law, the lovers of republican government, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... trusted they were safe in the haven for half a dozen good years to come. Those who were moved by professional ambition, those whose object was social advancement, those who thought only of upright public service, the keen party of men, the men who aspire to office, the men with a past and the men who looked for a future, all alike found themselves adrift on dark and troubled waters. The secrets of the Bill had been well kept. To-day the disquieted host were first to learn ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... of our history. Milan saw entering its gates, bearing the proud name of King, the same hero who had already been proclaimed conqueror, liberator, peace-maker, and legislator, and who to-day, under his august Empire, assures that greatness to which his victories and his genius permit us to aspire. The Emperor entered by the gate named after his most glorious ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... 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 ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... in righteousness and holiness, but is created with a capacity of receiving more of God by communion with him. Other creatures have already all they will have,—all they can have,—of conformity to him, but man is made liker than all, and is fitted and fashioned to aspire to more likeness and conformity, so that his soul may shine more and more ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... my other Niece, Sir, (cry'd 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 us suspected. Good-night, dear Philibella, and my Queen! Madam, I am your ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... not think we shall pretend to treat you as a conquered people? such a desire could have entered into the heads of none but those who are inimical to our common happiness. We only aspire to see you free and happy; yourselves will frame your own government, choosing that form which is most consistent with your customs, your situation, and your wishes. Consequently, you will constitute a nation as free and ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... care; the vanity of earthly things startles us suddenly, like a new truth; the friends we love drop away from our side into silence; desire fails; the grasshopper becomes a burden; until, at length, we feel that our only love is not here below,—until these tendrils of earth aspire to a better climate, and the weight that has been laid upon us makes us stoop wearily to the grave as a rest and a deliverance. We have, even through our tears, admired that discipline which sometimes prepares the young to die; which, by sharp trials of anguish, and long days ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... 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 is the mother ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... impression, which rather expresses itself by silent and passionate actions than by ingenious language. In general our literature is not characteristic of our national manners[23]. We are much too modest, I had almost said too humble a nation to aspire to tragedies taken from our own history, and bearing the stamp ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... the prince replied. "Once, foolishly, I did aspire to rule; but it is long ago. Now they have made a priest of me, and I seek peace only. Can I and my brethren help it if, mutilated though we are, some still wish to use us against the Emperor? I tell you that Irene herself ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... rats which wear their teeth away in gnawing the rotten panel; they close up the hole as soon as they smell the nuts and the lard locked up in the royal cupboard. The woman is the Whig of our government. Occupying the situation in which we have left her she might naturally aspire to the conquest of more than one privilege. Shut your eyes to the intrigues, allow her to waste her strength in mounting half the steps of your throne; and when she is on the point of touching your sceptre, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... his achievements which was pronounced, and then replaced. "I receive with sincere gratitude the wish to expressed by the Tribunate. I desire no other glory than having completely performed the task impose upon me. I aspire to no other reward than the affection of my fellow-citizens. I shall be happy if they are thoroughly convinced, that the evils which they may experience, will always be to me the severest of misfortunes; that life is dear to me solely for the services which I am to render ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... 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 a duchess, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and boundless floods, And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods, With forms that no man can discover For the dews that drip all over; Mountains toppling evermore Into seas without a shore; Seas that restlessly aspire, Surging, unto skies of fire; Lakes that endlessly outspread Their lone waters—lone and dead, Their still waters—still and chilly With the snows of the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... girl nearly so much, for she knew no matter how sweet and lovely and good a cat might be, it could only aspire to that honor in catland. She did so hate to hear Mr. Clay called old and poor when he was neither. To her he was brave Harry of the West, ...
— A Little Girl in Old New York • Amanda Millie Douglas
... "in comparison with this life of realities!" He saw that Lorry, instead of being without ambitions, was inspired by the highest ambitions. "A good son, a good lover, a good workman," thought Arthur. "What more can a man be, or aspire to be?" Before his mind's eyes there was, clear as light, vivid as life, the master workman—his father. And for the first time Arthur welcomed that vision, felt that he could look into Hiram's grave, kind eyes without flinching and without the slightest ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... independence in the sixteenth century against the most formidable regular army in Europe, and also did their fair share of fighting in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they have long ceased to aspire to the rank of a military Power. The separation from Belgium in 1830-31 put an end to the Orange policy of creating a powerful Netherland State from Lorraine to the North Sea which could hold its own with either France or Prussia, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... fine thing to be a public character," observed her father; "but even I aspire to some notice from the True Blue next week in consequence of having ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... for purity and peace, go to Nature. She will give you more than ye ask. Ye who long for strength and perseverance, go to Nature. She will train and strengthen you. Ye who aspire after an ideal, go to Nature. She will help you in its realization. Ye who yearn after Enlightenment, go to Nature. She will never ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... dream utterly, and aspire to nothing higher than colonel. It must really be an awful bore to be commander-in-chief. Fancy having to go down to your office every morning, and go into all sorts of questions, and settle all sorts of business. No, I think that, when ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... contempt, give yourself, as we do, wholly to the cultivation of your mind. You have for an example our mother, who is everywhere honoured with the name of learned. Try, as we do, to prove yourself her daughter; aspire to the enlightened intellectuality which is found in our family, and acquire a taste for the rapturous pleasures which the love of study brings to the heart and mind. Instead of being in bondage to the will of a man, marry ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... contentment inough for my selfe, and I hope much benefit for the whole Kingdome; how euer or whatsoeuer it is, it is all your Lordships, vnder the couert of whose fauourable protection if it may finde grace it is the vttermost aime whereunto my wishes aspire, nor shall I feare the malignitie of the curious, for it is not to them but the honest plaine English Husbandman, I intend my labours, vvhose defender you haue euer beene, and for whose Honorable prosperitie both they ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... on the winds of delight, may they beat With their palpitant wings at the hearts of the Young, And in bosoms of Age find as warm a retreat!— Yet sweetest of all of the musical throng, Though least of the numbers that upward aspire, Is the one rising now into wavering song, As I sit in the silence and gaze in ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... can only be achieved through arduous and persevering endeavour. Without a genuinely divine element—without the Spirit breathed into man by his Creator—we could not even realise our failure, nor aspire after a fuller portion of that same life-giving Spirit; it is what we have that tells us of what we lack, and directs us to Him who alone can supply our want out of His ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... you are overdoing it. It is quite right that woman should be a mystery to man, but she should not aspire to become a mystery to her sister woman. Are you just making fun, or is there something in all this more ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... that he was more worthy than I. I told myself that I was a country bumpkin, an ignorant clown, and unworthy to aspire to a maiden like Ruth Morton. That I was under a curse, that I dared not leave the Trewinion lands for six months at a time, and that it was better she should love Wilfred. This however, did not satisfy me. Try as I would to stifle it, I ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... Miss Westonhaugh, I neither condescend to call myself primitive, nor aspire to call ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... he had been very unwise—that he had no right to aspire to the hand of the beautiful heiress, for he could offer her nothing but his true heart, and this, he well knew, would be scorned by Violet's ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... their size Measure we men Or things. Wisdom, with eyes Washed in the fire, Seeketh the things That are higher— Things that have wings, Thoughts that aspire. ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... and lift me higher, Josephine! From the Eternal Hills hast thou not seen How I do strive for heights? but lacking wings, I cannot grasp at once those better things To which I in my inmost soul aspire. Lean down ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... a more lofty career," said the old gentleman. "You aspire to the senate: and to literary honours. You wield the poet's pen, sir, and move in the circles of fashion. We keep an eye upon you at Clavering. We read your name in the lists of the select parties of the nobility. Why, it was only the other day that my wife was remarking ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... exercises. My father did not altogether discourage such acquirements, whether mental or personal. He had too much good sense not to perceive, that they sate gracefully upon every man, and he was sensible that they relieved and dignified the character to which he wished me to aspire. But his chief ambition was, that I should succeed not merely to his fortune, but to the views and plans by which he imagined he could extend and perpetuate the wealthy inheritance which he ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... suppression of slavery may modify it profoundly. What degrades the free negro to-day, is the existence of the negro slave. To be respectable, we all need to be respected. The poor, free negro is ashamed of himself; he dares not aspire to any thing noble and great; he preserves, besides, as the legacy of slavery, the idea that labor is dishonoring, that idleness is a sign of independence. This is enough to make him remain a stranger to honorable occupations, and confine himself to the practice of vile trades. ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... should sacrifice his future to his present welfare; and in obtaining a power to which it has no claim, it risks that authority which is rightfully its own. When a religion founds its empire upon the desire of immortality which lives in every human heart, it may aspire to universal dominion: but when it connects itself with a government, it must necessarily adopt maxims which are only applicable to certain nations. Thus, in forming an alliance with a political power, religion augments its authority over a few, and forfeits ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... woman present who regarded Madame with a friendly eye, nor a man who did not aspire to become her devoted slave. She brought an atmosphere of unreality with her, dominating old and young alike by virtue of her splendid pagan beauty. The lawn, with its very modern appointments, became as some garden of the Golden House, a pleasure ground ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... it the more. I have suppressed many details to which I may later return if I learn that they afford pleasure to Your Holiness, charged with the weight of religious questions and sitting at the summit of the honours to which men may aspire. It is in no sense for my personal pleasure that I have collected these facts, for only the desire to please Your Beatitude has induced me to undertake ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... accorded to it after the rejection of all such peccant poems. As already intimated, I have not in a single instance excised any parts of poems: to do so would have been, I conceive, no less wrongful towards the illustrious American than repugnant, and indeed unendurable, to myself, who aspire to no Bowdlerian honours. The consequence is, that the reader loses in toto several important poems, and some extremely fine ones—notably the one previously alluded to, of quite exceptional value and excellence, entitled Walt Whitman. I sacrifice them grudgingly; ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... regal head as if the earth belonged to her, he really saw no reason why he, with his qualifications of comparative youth, good looks (his sort of good looks), and notorious pulpit eloquence, should not aspire to rush in where so many feared to tread. His rush had been checked at the outset, but he was still unaware of the nature of the barrier that Deb held rigid between them. He continued to gaze at her with his ardent little black eyes as if no barrier were there. And it was because he ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... holiday amusement; our puppets to admire, and greasy poles to climb for prizes by men who have been prudently required first to declare and register their ambition at the Bureau of Police. Government so gets something like a list of the men who aspire; who wish to mount. It must be very useful. There are our water tournaments at St. Cloud and at Boulogne-sur-Seine; where they who have informed the police of their combative propensities, may thrust at each other with long-padded poles from boats which are being rowed forcibly into collision. ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... for me, and on the assurance of my faith: sets her heart on riches, and urges another suit upon me, to my misery. I cannot bear this, for to bear it is to be untrue to you. I would rather share your struggles than look on. I want no better home than you can give me. I know that you will aspire and labour with a higher courage if I am wholly yours, and let it be so ...
— Some Christmas Stories • Charles Dickens
... came over her that she could not aspire to aristocracy and allow negro hall-boys to send men up in the elevator and telephone her afterward. She snatched up the telephone ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... have you to make? And if you had any that were worthy of the least attention of so great a monarch, what proportion could they bear to the favor you would ask? Therefore, reflect well on what you are about, and consider, that you aspire to an object which it is impossible for you ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the brilliant aspire To sing what I gaze on in vain, For sorrow has torn from my lyre The string ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... pleaseth she all those approaching nigh her, * * * * * Which goeth saying to the soul, 'Aspire!'" ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... voice which had become natural to him since his illness began; "my love for you proved too strong to be restrained just now: but believe me, I had fully made up my mind never to open my lips to you on the subject; for what right have I, a helpless, and, I fear, hopeless, invalid, to dare to aspire—" ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... at their backs neither people nor army; the English had been able to accomplish a revolution; the Fronde failed before the dexterous prudence of Mazarin and the queen's fidelity to her minister. In vain did the coadjutor aspire to take his place; Anne of Austria had not forgotten the Earl of Strafford.—Cardinal de Retz learned before long the hollowness of his hopes. On the 19th of December, 1652, as he was repairing to the Louvre, he was arrested by M. de Villequier, captain of the guards on duty, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... 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, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 8, 1914 • Various
... room in the cabin to my mother and sister, and slept and lived with me. Most of all he cheered us by the lofty, spiritual words with which he bade us look with contempt upon the troubles of life and aspire after immortal happiness. Yes, ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... opportunities when the dictates of justice may be unrelentingly enforced, and the beauty of the inner mind substantiated in the outward act;—for a visible standard to look back upon; for a point of realized excellence at which to aspire; a monument to record;—for a charter to fasten down; and, as far as it is ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... may entreat, aspire, He may despair, and she has never heed. She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need, Not ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... songs. They had no horses, but assembled in their canoes, racing and betting precisely as the Cheyenne lads run horses at sunset in the valley of the Lamedeer. All about the village the grass was rich and sweet, uncropped by any animal, for these poor fishermen do not aspire to the wonderful wealth of owning a horse. They had heard that cattle were coming over the trail and all inquired, "Spose when Moos-Moos come?" They knew that milk and butter were good things, and some of them had hopes of ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... purpose? Men say strange things concerning the extent of his communications with other beings, whom our fathers worshipped with prayer and sacrifice. I am determined, however, to know the road by which he climbs so high and so easily towards the point to which all men aspire at court, and it will go hard but he shall either share his ladder with me, or I will strike its support from under him. Thee, Hereward, I have chosen to assist me in this matter, as the knights among these Frankish infidels select, when going upon an adventure, ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... insensible, illustrious madam; but mousing owls and bats of low degree may not aspire to bliss so whelming and ecstatic as is found in ye downy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... part they may have played in the development of character in the past, they seem doomed to play less and less part in the future. Poetry and religion, so called, seem doomed to play less and less part in the life of the race in the future. We shall still dream and aspire, but we shall not tremble and worship as in ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... in society into which they could not gain entrance before. Now, if you marry Stanley Ginsling, as he is first cousin to Lord Fitzjinkins, we will have the entree to society to which they dare not aspire; and then the airs of superiority can be ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... 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 ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... 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 Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... sense to a wondrous degree; Your old-fashion'd faith does but fetter the mind, And it 's wrong not to seek to be free." Says the sage Politician, "Your natural share Of talents would raise you much higher, Than thus to crawl on in your present low sphere, And it 's wrong in you not to aspire." ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... inquiry, they are nevertheless radically different, as well as easily distinguishable, from each other. It is the favorite doctrine of the Positive school in France that the knowledge of "causes" is utterly interdicted to man, and that the only science to which he should aspire consists exclusively in the knowledge of "phenomena," and their cooerdination under "general laws." M. Comte explicitly avows this doctrine, and Mr. Mill and Mr. Lewes give it their implied sanction.[189] According to their theory, all Science is limited to "the laws of the ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... 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 the lolling ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... 'it is no such easy matter, Harmonides, to become a public character, or to gain the prestige and distinction to which you aspire; and if you propose to set about it by performing in public, you will find it a long business, and at the best will never achieve a universal reputation. Where will you find a theatre or circus large enough to admit ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... 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 ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Cupid, which doth aspire to be god of Desire, Swears he "gives lawes; That where his arrows hit, somejoy, some ...
— Quaint Gleanings from Ancient Poetry • Edmund Goldsmid
... and the transmutations of matter; if life is, in reality, but a brief and passing moment, eternally repeated, from the flush of youth, "the gilded salon to the bier and the shroud, then why, O why should the spirit of mortal be proud?" Why aspire to penetrate the inward realities of life and enter the Holy of Holies—to seek and find out God? As the rushing torrent of this thought swept o'er the mental chambers of the soul and saturated the spirit with its icy sting, as it lay still chained within the prison house of matter, ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... wheel. What were they, these figures? I knew not, and yet gazing upon them, thought which took no words to clothe itself mutely read their meaning. Here were the culminations of the human, towering images of the good and evil man may aspire to. I looked at the face of the evil adept. His bright red-brown eyes burned with a strange radiance of power; I felt an answering emotion of pride, of personal intoxication, of psychic richness rise up within me gazing upon him. His face was ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... wonder, for you see it's a poll-cat." This noted baronet was, in the metropolis, a retailer of brick-dust; and, his Garrat honours being supposed to be a means of improving his trade and the condition of his ass, many characters in similar occupations were led to aspire to the same distinctions. ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... of course, I shall be grateful to them for their kindly interest. Then, the next year I shall devote to music, and if, by practising for nine hundred hours, I cannot acquire a good degree of facility in manipulating a piano or a violin, I must be too dull to ever aspire to the favor of Terpsichore. If I but measure up to my hopes during this year I shall be saved the expense of buying my music ready-made. The next year I shall devote to art, and by spending one entire evening with a single artist I shall thus become acquainted ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... Johannes, in Victoria, is of humble birth, which counts in extenuation of his unmannerly frankness in early years. Later he becomes a poet, and as such is exempt in some degree from the conventional restraint imposed on those who aspire to polite society. All these well-chosen characters are made to serve the author's purpose as channels for poetic utterance that might otherwise seem irrelevant. The extent to which this is done may be seen from the way in which Hamsun lets ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... in 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. One may even be a don or a schoolmaster without serious ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... beyond that which you see around you, if they have been to you the hints of a wonder and glory beyond what visits you now, you must not call them silly, for they are just what the scents of Paradise borne on the air were to Adam and Eve as they delved and spun, reminding them that they must aspire yet again through labour into that childhood of obedience which is the only paradise of humanity—into that oneness with the will of the Father, which our race, our individual selves, need just as much ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... seemed too good for them, and as if thrown among them from association. There was no doubt that he and Bertha were much in love, but there was sure to be strong opposition from her father, and even her brother had shown symptoms of thinking his friend had no business to aspire to his sister's hand. Moreover, it appeared afterwards that the Captain was heavily in debt to Arthur Morton. It was under these circumstances that the accident occurred. Bertha had mistrusted the horse's eye and ear, and implored her brother not to venture on driving it, and had been bantered ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is obvious;—they who, like Mr. Sheridan, aim only to be men of wit, lie a bed; while they who, like Sir Isaac Newton, Mr. Burke, and a very few others, aspire to be men of wisdom, rise with ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... among the priests, to whom we owe 'Les Relations des Jesuites,' among other less notable productions. The Roman Catholic Church, being everywhere a democracy, the humblest habitant might enter its ranks and aspire to its highest dignities. Consequently we find the pioneers of that Church, at the very outset, affording the Canadian an opportunity, irrespective of birth or wealth, of entering within its pale. But apart from this class, there was no inducement ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... dearest young lady, that worldly joy claims no kindred with the joys we are bid to aspire after. These latter we must be fitted for by affliction and disappointment. You are therefore in the direct road to glory, however thorny the path you are in. And I had almost said, that it depends upon yourself, by your patience, and by your resignedness to the dispensation, (God enabling you, ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... injuries to which they are not accustomed, and on seeing them inflicted before their very eyes; and where least inclined for reflection, rush with the greatest heat to action. The Athenians are the very people of all others to do this, as they aspire to rule the rest of the world, and are more in the habit of invading and ravaging their neighbours' territory, than of seeing their own treated in the like fashion. Considering, therefore, the power of the state against which we are marching, and the greatness of ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole? But he may perhaps aspire to know at least the parts to which he bears some proportion. But the parts of the world are all so related and linked to one another, that I believe it impossible to know one without the other and ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... is so precious, and death on the wing, Oh! shelter me, Jesus, secure from his sting; Now open the fountain, and wash out my stain, That to live may be Christ, and to die may be gain. This, this is the honour to which I aspire, The grace to attain it is all I desire; Oh! fill me with heaven, through faith in Thy blood, Then crown me with glory, and ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... Duke says the King purposes to forbid any of their ships coming into the river. The Duke also told us of several Christian commanders (French) gone over to the Turks to serve them; and upon inquiry I find that the King of France do by this aspire to the Empire, and so to get the Crown of Spayne also upon the death of the King, which is very probable, it seems. Back to St. James's, and there dined with my Lord Barkeley and his lady, where Sir G. Carteret, Sir W. Batten, and myself, with ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... all this fury leading to? What does this heroism aspire to? This force of will, bitter and strained, grows faint when it has reached its goal, or even before that. It does not know what to do with its victory. It disdains it, does not believe in it, ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... Plato, that the government of our flocks and herds is always committed to beings of a superior species; and that the conduct of nations requires and deserves the celestial powers of the gods or of the genii. From this principle he justly concluded, that the man who presumes to reign, should aspire to the perfection of the divine nature; that he should purify his soul from her mortal and terrestrial part; that he should extinguish his appetites, enlighten his understanding, regulate his passions, and subdue ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... improve, And antedate the bliss above. This the divine Cecilia found, And to her Maker's praise confin'd the sound. When the full organ joins the tuneful quire, Th' immortal pow'rs incline their ear; Borne on the swelling notes our souls aspire, While solemn airs improve the sacred fire; And angels lean from Heav'n to hear. Of Orpheus now no more let poets tell, To bright Cecilia greater pow'r is given; His numbers rais'd a shade from Hell, Hers ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... The ways they wait in, Whose spirits greaten And hearts aspire. The world may dwindle, And summer brindle, So love but kindle ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... if, being a Christian, from weakness he enters into marital relations with the ceremonies of the church, or without them, he has no other alternative than to abide with his wife (and the wife with her husband, if it is she who is a Christian) and to aspire together with her to free themselves of their sin. This is the Christian view of marriage; and there cannot be any other for a man who honestly endeavors to shape his life in accordance ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... had written these lines, she summoned a youthful esquire, who had been a page in the service of her father. 'Saddle thy steed,' said she, 'and if thou dost aspire to knightly honor, or hope for lady's grace—if thou hast fealty for thy lord, or devotion to his daughter—speed swiftly upon my errand. Rest not, halt not, spare not the spur; but hie thee day and night until thou reach ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various |
