"Attain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... picture gallery is a dull place for a blind man. But even as you enjoy the contemplation of such romantic mirages as beauty and pleasure; so would I enjoy the contemplation of that which interests me above all things namely, Life: the force that ever strives to attain greater power of contemplating itself. What made this brain of mine, do you think? Not the need to move my limbs; for a rat with half my brains moves as well as I. Not merely the need to do, but the need to know what I do, lest in my blind efforts ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... which the artist (who learns continually from his surroundings) astonishes his contemporaries, he can only attain by ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... house: yet the place was not wholly unattractive, for it bore evidences of human love and happiness; and, after all, these are the objects for which the most orderly and elegant mansions exist, if indeed they are so fortunate as to attain them. These are the essence ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... an der Meinung des Publikums; mir ist nur eins wichtig, die Befriedigung meines inneren Willens, die Selbstachtung meiner Seele." But how he was able to preserve his self-respect, and at the same time be willing to employ any and all means to attain his end, perhaps no one less unscrupulous than he could comprehend. He intimates that he has decided upon threats and public intimidation as being probably more effective than a servile attitude, which, he allows us ...
— Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry • Wilhelm Alfred Braun
... cause has been joyfully embraced by a majority of our fellow-countrymen, who have already united around the glorious and sovereign banner of the United States. In this banner they repose their trust in the belief that under its protection our people will attain all the promised liberties which they are ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... me about getting up a 'club' for the mill folks. 'The right sort of club, with books and pictures and everything helpful.' The saucebox! and she earning the mighty wage of two-fifty per week. Well, all in good course. I haven't toiled a lifetime to attain my object, then relinquish it without a little enjoyment of it; though, after all, possession isn't everything. The struggle was about as enjoyable as the result. But I succeeded! I am master of Fairacres, of Ardsley ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... I borrow an illustration to show my meaning: it is well to sail round many cities, but advantageous to live in the best. It was a witty remark of the philosopher Bion,[21] that, as those suitors who could not seduce Penelope took up with her maids as a pis aller, so those who cannot attain philosophy wear themselves out in useless pursuits. Philosophy, therefore, ought to be regarded as the most important branch of study. For as regards the cure of the body, men have found two branches, medicine and exercise: the former of which gives health, and the latter ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... Oblats. On descending be careful to take the path to the left of the stone altar under a canopy on 4 columns. Asmall omnibus drives up the length of the Plateau de la Croix, whence a series of 178 steps has to be ascended to attain to the terrace on which the church stands, 535 ft. above the sea. The church is shut between 12 and 2, but the tower, ascended by 154 steps, can always be visited. Fee, fr. It is 148 ft. high, crowned with a gilded image of Mary 30 ft. high, ascended by steps in the interior to ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... a second edition of "Coral Reefs" appeared, in a cheaper form, in 1874. It is rare indeed for a scientific treatise to attain at once and maintain so long a position of such undisputed authority. The eminent German naturalist, Semper, in 1863, criticised the general theory in consequence of his own careful examination of the Pelew Islands; but Darwin easily answered him by pointing to the cumulative evidence ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... sepoys, too, on our right, running fast and shouting, but we reached the centre long before they, and the mob following, could attain to the end of the line nearest to them; and just then, as I glanced to my left, I saw the rajah clap spurs to his horse, as if to ride up, but he reined instantly, and his two companions followed his example; dignity forbade this. We must ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... kept his own senses amidst the general delirium. He allowed an hour for this orgy of blood to attain its maximum and then cease, and the final scene of the obsequies was performed with the ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... friends, will ever realize the man that I was. You know me only as a civilian—with an air and a manner, it is true—but still merely as a civilian. Had you seen me as I stood in the doorway of the inn at Alamo, on the 1st of July, in the year 1810, you would then have known what the hussar may attain to. ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been of modern works of fiction, written by her own sex, which had revealed to her something of her own powers and given her indeed, an exaggerated notion of the influence, the wealth, the position a woman may attain who has beauty and talent and ambition and a little culture, and is not too scrupulous in the use of them. She wanted to be rich, she wanted luxury, she wanted men at her feet, her slaves, and she had not—thanks to some of the novels ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... count on a Bishopric; or he might go to the Bar, where, if he was lucky, he might become a judge or even Lord Chancellor. Unless, however, he could provide the capital wanted for admission, he could attain to nothing—nothing—nothing. ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... was the matter of clothes. I believed that men and women should go as nearly naked as possible ... clothing for warmth only ... and, as one grew in strength and health through nude contact with living sun and air and water, the body would gradually attain the power to keep itself warm from the health and strength that was ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... utmost care, and was led by the existence of shrubs, grass, and even stunted trees, to believe that this rock marked the farthest extent of the slip, or slide of earth, and that, could he but round the angle of which it was the termination, he might hope to attain the continuation of the path which had been so strangely interrupted by this convulsion of nature. But the crag jutted out so much as to afford no possibility of passing either under or around it; and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 371, May 23, 1829 • Various
... You will await your instructions, and not move until you receive them from my own hand. Make no attempt to surprise anybody or anything, until I have ten thousand men ashore. Ten thousand will in six hours attain to fifty thousand, if the shore proves to be as you describe; so great is the merit of flat-bottomed boats. Your duty will be to leave the right surprise to us, and create a false one among the enemy. This you must do in the distance of the West, as if my Brest fleet were ravaging there, and ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... flowers. But when she had gained from education all these graces, which made her the general wonder, Dionysia, the wife of Cleon, became her mortal enemy from jealousy, by reason that her own daughter, from the slowness of her mind, was not able to attain to that perfection wherein Marina excelled: and finding that all praise was bestowed on Marina, whilst her daughter, who was of the same age, and had been educated with the same care as Marina, though not with the same success, was in comparison disregarded, she formed a ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... unscrupulously themselves when they are young. The changes and chances of this mortal life mellow them into a more neutral tint. Their revenge upon life grows less personal and more objective as they get older. They become balanced and resigned. They attain "the wisdom of Sophocles." ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... ran forward to meet the messenger, who quickly unburdened himself of his information, and as quickly turned and scampered back toward the village. When running these beast-men often go upon all fours. Thus they leap over obstacles that would slow up a human being, and upon the level attain a speed that would make a thoroughbred look to his laurels. The result in this instance was that before I had more than assimilated the gist of the word which had been brought to the fields, I was alone, ...
— Pellucidar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... powerful motive in bringing about the popular condemnation of masturbation; and it must further be remembered that the amatory life, and more especially its psychical accompaniments, in truth only attain their fullest development through the mutual ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... does not attain even to the questionable dignity of a marriage ceremony. Flattered by the attentions of some swell, the pretty shop girl will be induced to accompany him to the theatre and to supper in a concert saloon. Her vanity is kindled by his appearance. ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... attention to hints so coldly thrown out, especially as distance, shortness of leave of absence, and so forth, furnished a ready apology. But latterly the burden of Mr. Richard Waverley's paternal epistles consisted in certain mysterious hints of greatness and influence which he was speedily to attain, and which would ensure his son's obtaining the most rapid promotion, should he remain in the military service. Sir Everard's letters were of a different tenor. They were short; for the good Baronet was none of your illimitable correspondents, whose manuscript overflows the ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... corporeal, some incorporeal; some of the substance of God, some of the substance of the body. So infinitely are men's conceits distracted with a variety of opinions, whereas there is but one Truth, which every man aims at, but few attain it; every man thinks he hath it, and ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... is what we are principally to learn; this is what we can not attain without the help of art; this ought to be the object of our study, our exercise, our imitation; this may be full employment for our whole life; by this, one orator excels another; and from this proceeds ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... into the Springs and Means by which our best Poets attain their Excellence in the several Dialects they touch the finest, what 'tis that constitutes the Difference between the Language of one and that of another; and also what Rank or Class each Dialect belongs to; I have done the same as to the Writings of Mr. Row. And I observe that ...
— A Full Enquiry into the Nature of the Pastoral (1717) • Thomas Purney
... for the actuality. The very winds whispered mysteriously of coming triumphs, and as he listened his unrest grew greater. At length there came a time when dreams no longer satisfied him, and he pondered how he might attain his desires. ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... prefixed to his Juvenal that the general character of his translation will be found to be plainness: and if I do not misunderstand what he means by the term, it exactly represents the quality which I have endeavoured to attain myself. As a general rule, where a rendering presented itself to me which in dealing with another author I should welcome as poetical, I hare deliberately rejected it, and cast about instead for something which, without being feeble or slipshod, should have an idiomatic prosaic ring. ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... remained in Mrs. Montague's parlor until her return from the concert, brooding over the failure of his purpose, and trying to devise some scheme by which he could attain the desire of ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... frontier towns, diseased in body and mind, and whose greatest misfortune is that they live. These, Miss Chloe Elliston, are the real monuments to your education. Do you dare to drive one hundred to certain degradation that is worse than fiery hell, that you may point with pride to one who shall attain to the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... the actual speed of the vessel with the speed due to the pitch and number of revolutions of the screw, or, what is the same thing, the speed which the vessel would attain if the screw worked in a solid nut. The difference between the actual speed and this hypothetical ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... carriage traffic to the valleys on either side; which since railroad days are the termini of all journeys. The elevation above the surrounding hills and valleys is such that one must always climb to attain the hill; and one moves upon its lofty ridge in constant sight of the distant conspicuous heights, the Connecticut uplands east of the Housatonic on one side, and on the other, the Shawangunk and Catskill Mountains, west of the Hudson, all of them ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... its punishment, and drinking to the dregs its cup of bitterness. Thus his true life lies in the realization of his ideal, and his advance towards it is his coming to himself. Only in attaining to it does he attain reality, and the only realization possible for him in the present is just the consciousness of the potency of the ideal. To him to live is to realize his ideal. It is a power that irks, till it finds expression in moral habits that ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... only in that light. The end is—to give him the same quantity of corn, suppose. That end attained, he cares nothing about the means by which it is attained. Now, your ideal rise of wages does not attain this end. The corn has really risen; this is the first step. In consequence of this, an ideal rise follows in all things, which evades the absurdities of a real rise—and evades the Ricardian doctrine of profits; but, then, only by also evading any real rise in wages, the necessity ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Angelico pours out with full hands the most vivid and intense feelings of his soul, and if he does not attain to grand dramatic power, he at least succeeds in depicting with rare ingenuity the varied expressions of sorrow, despair, hope and faith which animate each person, and in giving natural and life-like character and attitude to ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... frequently raised to the idea of interplanetary travel is that the human body could not stand the rapid acceleration which would be necessary to attain speed enough to ever get anywhere. How do you ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... down the road. The orderly rode away to some outlying stable, and then in a few minutes there came a smart English groom with a cockade in his hat, leading by the bridle a horse—and, oh, my friends, you have never known the perfection to which a horse can attain until you have seen a first-class English hunter. He was superb: tall, broad, strong, and yet as graceful and agile as a deer. Coal black he was in colour, and his neck, and his shoulder, and his quarters, and his fetlocks—how can I describe him all ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... at the most solemn epochs. In 1848 the formula "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs" was the one which went straight to the heart of the masses, and if they acclaimed the Republic and universal suffrage, it was because they hoped to attain to Communism through them. In 1871, also, when the people besieged in Paris desired to make a supreme effort to resist the invader, what was their demand?—That free rations should be served out ...
— The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution - An Address Delivered in Paris • Pierre Kropotkin
... would reach the summit of fame and of honour, I know where he may find it. There is a Castle on a lofty mountain, and there is a maiden therein, and she is detained a prisoner there, and whoever shall set her free will attain the summit of the fame of the world." And thereupon ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... again be tempted towards worldly enjoyments (uparati), (b) power of bearing extremes of heat, cold, etc., (c) employment of mind towards the attainment of right knowledge, (d) faith in the instructor and Upani@sads; (5) strong desire to attain salvation. A man possessing the above qualities should try to understand correctly the true purport of the Upani@sads (called s'rava@na), and by arguments in favour of the purport of the Upani@sads to strengthen his conviction as stated in the Upani@sads ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... leader, has held that, without such added increment of energy constantly augmenting the dynamic effects, no storm could long continue in violent action. And it is doubted whether any storm could ever attain, much less continue, the terrific force of that most dreaded of winds of temperate zones, the tornado—a storm which obeys all the laws of cyclones, but differs from ordinary cyclones in having a vortex core only a few feet or yards in diameter—without ...
— A History of Science, Volume 3(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... of women to seek a life of repose, their eagerness to attain the life of elegance, does not mean contempt for labor, but it is a confession of unfitness for labor. Women were not intended to work,—not because work is ignoble, but because it is as disastrous to the beauty of a woman ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hitherto lived pleasantly by means of never asking too much of himself, and in consequence being always tolerably equal to his own demands upon himself. Quixotism was not to be expected of him. A nice observance of honor was as much as he would be likely to attain to; and friendship would be satisfied if he gave the doubtful points ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... and many like symptoms. No unexperienced person can imagine what a life it is to be thus physically but half alive. The temptation is incessant to raise by artificial helps the physical tone, in order thus to attain activity and energy of mind. My only wonder is that I did not sooner resort to what would at least give temporary relief to the depression and torpor from which I suffered ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... was to take place on his promotion to the rank of full surgeon—a promotion he hoped to attain speedily at the conclusion of the voyage on the strength of his scientific work, for this was the inducement held out by the Admiralty to energetic subalterns. The following letter to his ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... moving from under him, and, starting up, found he had been making use of a huge sawar lying inert and distended with food. He killed it, and found a full-grown deer in its stomach. These snakes must live to a great age, and grow always, to attain such ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... I feel deeply with you that I have a mission in life. But one must act in each instant as though that mission was having immediate fulfilment. Do not let us keep back one single small corner of our hearts for our small hopes. We must attain to this—that no catastrophe whatsoever shall have power to cripple our lives, to interrupt them, to set them out of tune. That is the finest work, and it is the work of this moment. The rest, that future which ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... Son of God, that it avails to free from sin. The elect, who through the grace of God have such faith, are drawn by the perfect love, and the sympathy in its strictest sense, which were manifested by the obedience unto death of Jesus Christ, to follow the example of his obedience, and thereby to attain to righteousness. By this reasoning it is shown, but only so far as regards the elect, that "the many are made righteous by the obedience of Christ." It will in the sequel be argued that the death of Christ has another aspect and ...
— An Essay on the Scriptural Doctrine of Immortality • James Challis
... a scholar—so reputed, and justly; but one of life's most important lessons had passed her by. She had never learned that to receive, one must give; to be loved, one must love; to attain, one must reach out. It never occurred to her to weigh her own shortcomings and throw them into the balance with those of her enemies. She spent no time in introspection, self examination. She set a high standard on her own ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... containing the trichinae is eaten by man or by any animal in which the development can take place, the capsules are digested and the trichinae are set free. They pass into the small intestine and about the third day attain their full growth and become sexually mature. The young produced by each female trichina have been estimated at several hundred. The time from the eating of the flesh containing the muscle trichinae to the development of the brood of embryos in the intestines (bowels) is from ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... advantage to us. Therefore we must not despair. Let us take courage and continue to probe the mystery—for the sake of poor Gabrielle Tennison," I urged. "Let us act as quietly and discreetly as our enemy is acting, and we may yet attain success!" ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... admired for an elegance, poignancy, and happiness of expression, or, in a word, that Attic salt and spirit, to which the Roman language could never attain, and for which Aristophanes(202) is more remarkable than any other of the Greek authors. His particular excellence was raillery. None ever touched what was ridiculous in the characters whom he wished to expose with such success, or knew better how to convey ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... Norway; and my relation Hakon shall come to me, which will suit him better, for he is so honourable and trustworthy that I believe he would not even throw a spear against the person of King Olaf if he came back to the country." Kalf lent his ear to what the king proposed, for he had a great desire to attain this high dignity; and this conclusion was settled upon between King Canute and Kalf. Kalf then prepared to return home, and on his departure he received splendid presents from King Canute. Bjarne the skald tells of ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... during the rest of the day to try the fortune of a battle. Of this General Ross did not fail to take advantage. He had already attained all that he could hope, and perhaps more than he originally expected to attain; consequently, to risk another action would only be to spill blood for no purpose. Whatever might be the issue of the contest, he could derive from it no advantage. If he were victorious, it would not do away with the necessity ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... disadvantage: by incessant changes in the personnel of government—to say nothing of the manner of men that ignorant constituencies elect; and all constituencies are ignorant—we attain to no fixed principles and standards. There is no such thing here as a science of politics, because it is not to any one's interest to make politics the study of his life. Nothing is settled; no truth finds general ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... Mr. Mill's sympathy is with the people, the many, the whole of humanity, and while his desire for men is that they may attain the mental elevation which shall make them really human beings, yet a marked feature of his book is the mild Malthusian element which pervades it. Let no stigma be therefore fixed upon him. Let honor be rendered to the courage which steadily inquires, not what representation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... as a draught of rich wine; and temporarily forgetting, in the pleasure of the moment, not only their past sufferings but their present and future perils, they chatted merrily and arranged a hundred plans, many of which, could they but have known it, were destined never to attain fruition. ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... unsurpassed fertility, where there was scarcely room for a path amid the exuberant growths; where pedestrians, riders, and animals had to move about along the embankments of countless canals. Now a land of roses, of the vine, olive, sugar-cane, and cotton, where the orange and lemon plants attain the size of our apple-trees, it was in primeval times an arid depression of the ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... decent Latin letter, and yet they indite excellent Arabic verse!" Filled with despairing ardor this man aroused a few kindred spirits to join him in a desperate attempt to awaken the benumbed conscience of the Christians. They could not get the Moslems to persecute them, but they might attain martyrdom by cursing the Prophet; then the infidels, however reluctant, would be compelled to behead them. This they did, and one by one perished, to no purpose. The Gothic Christians were not conscience-stricken as Eulogius ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... France, and is now professed at Geneva. As the priests of this sect receive but very inconsiderable stipends from their churches, and consequently cannot emulate the splendid luxury of bishops, they exclaim very naturally against honours which they can never attain to. Figure to yourself the haughty Diogenes trampling under foot the pride of Plato. The Scotch Presbyterians are not very unlike that proud though tattered reasoner. Diogenes did not use Alexander half so impertinently as these treated King Charles ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... Now that speech itself can be sent a thousand miles away, or heard a thousand years after, we discern in these achievements two goals toward which we have been making, and at which we should arrive some day. We marvel that we had no prescience of these, and that we did not attain to them sooner. Why has it taken so many generations to reach a foregone conclusion? Alas! they neither knew the conclusion nor the means of attaining to it. Man works from ignorance towards greater knowledge ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... may possess in the affairs of the state to infuse a spirit of moderation into our acts, and above all into our language; for one hasty word uttered in certain quarters may lead to the ruin of kingdoms that have taken centuries to attain their growth. But this I say: let there only come over here from the West the faintest whisper of any purpose on the part of Aurelian to consider Zenobia as holding the same position in regard to Rome as Tetricus in Gaul, and that moment a flame is kindled throughout ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... the part of a coward in order to hide his treason at the battle of Monmouth? It was the inward eating corruption of that selfish vanity which caused him to desire the defeat of an army whose command he had wished but failed to attain. He had offered his sword to America for his own glory, and when that was denied him, he withdrew the offering, and died, as he ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... Bharata; for one pulled down from a throne it is nothing but hardship that awaits him. O king, where is there any happiness for him! O afflicter of thy foes, in compensation for all this vast misery wrought by Dhritarashtra's son, thou wilt attain to proportional happiness after having killed thy foes, O great king. O lord of men, the ways of the world are known to thee. Therefore, O my son, thou art never guided by avarice in any of thy dealings. O descendant of Bharata, do thou tread on the foot-prints of ancient saintly kings. My son, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... judgment it would be a fortunate voyage. But under this figure he concludes, 'this proved not so, for he was taken prisoner by pirates ere he arrived in Turkey, and lost all.' He set several questions to know if he should attain the philosophers' stone, and the figures, according to his straining, did seem to signify as much; and then he tuggs upon the aspects and configurations, and elected a fit time to begin his operation; but, by and by, in conclusion, he adds, 'so the work went very ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... king and yourself. Knowing that the best way to show my gratitude is to do good service to His Majesty, and that the best title to future benevolence lies in strenuous effort for the successful execution of his wishes, I shall do my utmost to attain that end in the charge I am going to fill. I pray for your protection and help, which will surely be needed, and if my endeavours should not be crowned with success, at least it will not be for want ...
— The Great Intendant - A Chronicle of Jean Talon in Canada 1665-1672 • Thomas Chapais
... what I really want to know is what you propose to do to help me to attain a position in which I can educate my children as we ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker
... whatever has received the *imprimatur* of critical authority. Buy without any immediate reference to what you will read. Buy! Surround yourself with volumes, as handsome as you can afford. And for reading, all that I will now particularly enjoin is a general and inclusive tasting, in order to attain a sort of familiarity with the look of "literature in all its branches." A turning over of the pages of a volume of Chambers's *Cyclopdia of English Literature*, the third for preference, may be suggested as an admirable and a diverting exercise. You might mark the authors ...
— LITERARY TASTE • ARNOLD BENNETT
... well said that we grow to be like our nearest neighbors, and the effect of Albert Page's vigorous efforts to attain success was not lost ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... centuries before the eyes of the world as a type of character which Christian men should emulate—a vision of life whose influence has touched millions with its inspiration. The price which had to be paid to attain this nobleness of character and this vastness of holy ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... assured; but before Clarendon's life ended he might have learned to what a height of self-aggrandizement, and of unscrupulous oppression, the popular wiles of that astute tactician had helped him to attain. Had Clarendon been blessed with agents wiser than Middleton and more honest than Archbishop Sharp, the Government of Scotland might have been consolidated; the bitterness, to which her religious fanaticism was goaded, might have been assuaged; and one of the darkest pages ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... probation period of the negro." Let it be supposed that this period of probation [181] for the Negro should extend, under such exceptionally favourable circumstances, to any period less than that which is alleged to have been needed by the Anglo-Saxon to attain his political manhood—what then are the prospects held out by Mr. Froude to us and our posterity on our mastering the training and discipline which he specially recommends for Blacks? Our author, in view, doubtless, of the rapidity of our onward progress, and indeed our actual advancement ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... these days of advanced education, that we are educating young people beyond the station they can possibly attain, and that we may find the cleverness expend itself in forging other people's names and signatures to obtain money without that honest labour by which their parents were content to earn a livelihood. The evidence, however, ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... girl so stupidly blind to her true interest? She can not hope to make half so brilliant a match, for he is certainly one of the most promising young men in the State, and would give her a position in the world that otherwise she can never attain." ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... toward this shell-made nimbus looking too soft in the bright sunlight to have darts of death. All the shell-bursts seemed to be in a breadth of twenty or thirty yards. How could guns firing at a range of from two to five thousand yards attain ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... pays to the music of a man who has expressed himself beautifully in tone. This at once reveals to us that we should listen to what is great for the purpose of getting ideals. We hear what we hope to attain. It is said of the violinist, Pierre Baillot, that when only ten years of age he heard the playing of Viotti, and though he did not hear it again for twenty years the performance ever remained in his mind as an ideal to be realized in his studies, ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... was the fairyland of her dreams, the childhood's home of her father, who was a good story-teller when he was not irritated, the Mecca and Medina of all the pilgrimages of all their little world. To go East was to be a travelled person, to attain distinction, just the next best thing in fact to being made President of the United States. To go East was to live near the timber, where one could wander for hours, days, ages, in the cool freshness of its shady paths. The sunburned child, with her jug hanging by a strap from the saddle horn, ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... consequently, his influence is profound. Eleven is not quite satisfactory: it is only an approach. Eleven has the disadvantage of six, of nineteen, of forty-four, and of sixty-nine. But, like twelve, seven is an honourable age, and the ambition to attain it is laudable. People look forward to being seven. Similarly, twenty is worthy, and so, arbitrarily, is twenty-one; forty-five has great solidity; seventy is most commendable and each year thereafter an increasing honour. Thirteen ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... profit by experience until we have had experience so there is nothing to do but get busy and experience will come as fast as we can absorb it. Our duty is to strive for success and not expect to attain it except by successive steps. A wholesale consignment would be our undoing. Quick successes through luck or good fortune have not the lasting value of those won by virtue of knowing how—of accomplishing what ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... December or beginning of January; the second, and greatest, occurs after the river inundates the interior, in a manner similar to the overflow of the Nile, this rise not taking place at Tette until March. The Portuguese say that the greatest height which the March floods attain is thirty feet at Tette, and this happens only about every fourth year; their observations, however, have never been very accurate on anything but ivory, and they have in this case trusted to memory alone. ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... difficult of attainment as patience, open no door for anger; the Buddha has pronounced that he who renounces anger shall attain the degree of an anagamin (a ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... To attain this end in the presence of an ever-watchful foe who had just recently been reinforced in considerable numbers from Richmond and further south—almost enough to make up the losses he had sustained in the Wilderness and at Spottsylvania—required the ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... best marksmen in Europe—indeed the only troops who were perfectly practised in the use of small arms." But then their withering volleys were sometimes fired at a distance of only a few yards from the wavering masses of their foes, and under such conditions good marksmanship is easy to attain. A blind man might bet he would not miss. On the other hand, he must be a good shot indeed who can hit a foe he never sees. In these last weeks there were few casualties among the Boers, because they kept well out of casualty range. They were so frightened they even forgot to snipe. The valiant ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... strangely unsettled his mind. Patriotic grief probably had something to do with this at the outset. But even more than this as a source of permanent irritation may be reckoned the spell cast over Gounod's mind by a beautiful adventuress, who was ambitious to attain social and musical recognition through the eclat of the great composer's friendship. Though newspaper report may be credited with swelling and distorting the naked facts, enough appears to be known to make it sure that the evil genius of Gounod's London life was a woman, who traded recklessly ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... the quarter of Paris in which a presumed signal was observed, the house whence it emanated was at once invaded by National Guards, and perfectly innocent people were often carried off and subjected to ill-treatment. To such proportions did the craze attain that some papers even proposed that the Government should forbid any kind of light whatever, after dark, in any room situated above the second floor, unless the windows of that room were "hermetically sealed"! Most victims of the mania submitted to the mob's ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... present a wonderfully minute and impressive series of pictures of the life, manners, and customs of the Tibetans. No less powerful and vivid are his descriptions of the scenery and natural phenomena of the Forbidden Land, which are reinforced by an ample series of illustrations that attain a high standard of artistic excellence. Mr. Landor's bitter experiences have had at least the advantage of providing him with material for the most absorbing travel book produced ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... wonderful, that while we should be utterly ashamed to use a superiority of body in order to thrust our weaker companions aside from some place of advantage, we unhesitatingly use our superiorities of mind to thrust them back from whatever good that strength of mind can attain? You would be indignant if you saw a strong man walk into a theatre or lecture-room, and, calmly choosing the best place, take his feeble neighbor by the shoulder, and turn him out of it into the back seats or the street. You would be equally indignant if you saw a stout ...
— Practice Book • Leland Powers
... into Money and Annuities purchased thereout for the lives of my dear Wife Mary and my daughters Harriet and Sophia and what proportions my said Executor shall please to reserve to my sons William and Allen shall be paid them severally as they shall attain the age of twenty and three And as for my Shares in the Register or Universal Register Office I give ten thereof to my aforesaid Wife seven to my Daughter Harriet and three to my daughter Sophia my Wife to be put in immediate possession of her ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... and Protestants was now raging with implacable fury, and Guise, victorious in many battles, had acquired from the Catholic party the name of "Savior of his Country." The duke was now upon the very loftiest summits of power which a subject can attain. In great exaltation of spirits, he one morning left the army over which he was commander-in-chief to visit the duchess, who had come to meet him at the neighboring castle of Corney. The duke very imprudently ...
— Henry IV, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... itself there is reason to suppose that it is meant to be more regular than man allows it to become. There may easily be an "appointed time" to which we do not suffer ourselves, or each other, to attain. Those strange, inequalities by which one human being is left to pass over the century mark, another is cut off just when he is most needed, while a third does no more than touch this plane for an hour or two, may be the results of our misreadings of God's Will, and ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... up to her without actually crawling along an unguarded ridge of masonry, as she must have done to attain her present position; but they approached as near as was possible, and called to ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... there is a full crop of fruit on the trees cultivation should be continued as late as possible as all the stimulus that can thus be secured will be necessary to help the fruit attain good size and maturity, and at the same time enable the tree properly to mature its fruit and leaf buds for the following year. On the other hand, in a year when there is not a full crop of fruit cultivation should be stopped early so ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... if his fury and his courage be awakened when the champions of Erin and Alba are at him in the house, the Destruction will not be wrought so long as he is therein. Six hundred will fall by Conaire before he shall attain his arms, and seven hundred will fall by him in his first conflict after attaining his arms. I swear to God what my tribe swears, unless drink be taken from him, though there be no one else in the house, but he alone, he would hold ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... garrisons of a foreign power, the work of settling the northwestern territory was bound to go forward slowly and painfully; but while the navigation of the Mississippi was barred, even the settlements already founded could not attain to ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... beautiful, but enduring, and the works of man are all sooner or later judged by his fellows, and judged fairly. But it is unprofitable to discuss these matters; for those who are very great seldom know that they are, and those who are not cannot be persuaded that they might not attain to greatness if circumstances were slightly changed in their favor. Perhaps also there is very little use in making any preamble to what I have to tell. I remember to have been at a great meeting of American bankers at Niagara some years ago, where, ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... may not attain to a knowledge of the truth at once, yet should we never lose an opportunity of making a vocabulary of such words as we know to be correct. This should be the case from one consideration alone; for how gratifying it is, when visiting an uncivilized people, to find that you know a word or two ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... need for anger. I have a very high regard for good women. Mrs. Custance is not a woman, merely a psychological problem to me. She cares for only one person—herself, and that self she regards as a celestial body around which all other lesser bodies should revolve. To attain this necessary consummation she adopts a chameleon character, altering herself to suit all who approach her. To you she is sweet, and inclined to gush; to me, a woman whose interests are in the stern affairs of life; to another ...
— Grey Town - An Australian Story • Gerald Baldwin
... Church to be read to the people during public worship composed the whole Word of God. From that day it became his constant study and delight. A severe illness, brought on by hard study, gave him time for meditation. He felt a strong desire to become a monk, under the belief that by so doing he should attain to holiness. All this time living with the excellent Cotta family, nothing could be more exemplary and orderly than his life. Though animated and lively and delighting in music, he had, from his boyhood, been serious-minded ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... but a congeries of souls and bodies, united by the soul and the body which fill universal space, then it follows that "the art of philosophy" consists in the attempt to attain the sort of "contemplation" which can by the power of its love enter into the joy and the suffering of all ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... woman only, which almost moves the sick man to bless his sickness. A holy gift,—surely the immediate influx of Christ's spirit. Man knows it not, albeit when he and woman have become more closely united than now, he may attain to share the Divine prerogative. Study nor skill can counterfeit it; but in the true woman it is perfect at the first appeal as ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... a vast and inopportune fog fell from the grey sky; however, at noon an exact observation could be taken. The vessel was in 65 degrees 20 minutes latitude by 54 degrees 22 minutes longitude. It was necessary to attain two degrees more in order to meet with freer and ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... reform in the civil service. There is unquestionably need of reform in that direction: it would be too much to presume that in the generally imperfect state of man his methods of civil government would attain perfection; but it must be questioned whether the subject has been approached from the right direction and upon the side of the popular sympathy and understanding. At this time propositions of civil-service reform have not even the recognition, much less the comprehension, of the mass ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... really care no more for mankind than See-wise cared for the fish, lift their voices in shouts of a spurious humanity, in order to raise themselves to power, on the shoulders of an excited populace. Bloodshed, domestic violence, impracticable efforts to attain an impossible perfection, and all the evils of a civil conflict are forgotten or blindly attempted, in order to raise themselves in the arms of those they ...
— The Lake Gun • James Fenimore Cooper
... intaking of her breath? Was there a deepening in the expression of her matchless eyes, and an imperceptible widening of them, as they dwelt upon her companion? Was there a stiffening of her figure in its attitude of quiet repose, and did her muscles attain a sudden rigidity, induced by that startling announcement? Saberevski could not have answered any one of these questions. So perfectly were the features and the facial expression of Princess Zara under her control that she outwardly ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... persecutors. The blush of innocence upon her cheek, The burning pride that flashed within her eye, The majesty enthroned upon her brow, Told, in a language which the tyrant felt, That her unconquered spirit soared sublime In a pure orbit whither his sordid soul Could ne'er attain. Had he a captive led Some odious wretch, whose sanguinary crimes, Long perpetrated under sanction of a strength No arm could reach, had spread a pall of mourning Over a people's desolated homes, He then had right to ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... reverse of fortune. He is at the top of the fickle goddess's wheel, and the least impulse given to one of its many spokes must send him down the slippery road of trouble. Nevertheless, though difficult to attain, these three points are the main ones to be aimed at by every English builder and architect; let him only keep them as the stars by which he steers his course, and he will come to a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... quickly again reduced into the way: which observed by one of the seven wise men, made him give men this praecept, which is now worne out, Respice Finem; that is to say, in all your actions, look often upon what you would have, as the thing that directs all your thoughts in the way to attain it. ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Will you go on as you have been living for almost half a century, or is there still a germ of good within you that you will have strength and resolution to develop, as far as may be, toward that perfect symmetry which God desires every human soul to attain? Think!—choose! Make this hour the turning point in your career; go back to your painting, retrieve your skill, and work to some purpose and for some worthy object. If you do not need the money such work will bring, for your ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... me one day: "I am not going to flatter you—I have no interest in doing so; but I am going to give you a piece of advice, which you ought to think over. Stay in Italy, settle down here, and you will reach a far higher position than you can possibly attain in your own country. The intellectual education you possess is exceedingly rare in Italy; what I can say, without exaggeration, is that in this country it is so extraordinary that it might be termed an active force. Within two years ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... had striven with her only yesterday—only yesterday—had passed utterly away in a few hours. It seemed incredible, beyond the bounds of possibility. Again and again Sir Beverley's speech and look returned to her. How emphatic he had been, how resolutely determined to attain his end! He had discharged his obligation, as he had said. He had paid his last debt. And in the payment of it he had laid upon her a burden which she had felt ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the lives of boys and young men. Behind the youthful clergyman's deep concern for decent government was a vital religious faith, without which he was convinced social service and reform work can never attain the best results. ...
— Frank H. Nelson of Cincinnati • Warren C. Herrick
... and repugnant to the Holy Scriptures. Now, as I know how well it becomes me to obey and believe the decisions of my superiors, which proceed out of more knowledge than the weakness of my intellect can attain to, this theory which I send you, which is founded on the motion of the earth, I now look upon as a fiction and a dream, and beg your highness to receive it as such. But as poets often learn to prize the creations of their fancy, so in like manner ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... second or two it seemed that the worst had passed, and that the violent motion was subsiding. It increased again and became as severe as before. None expected to escape. A sudden rush was simultaneously made to endeavor to attain the open-air and fly to a place of safety; but, before the door was reached all stopped short, as by a common impulse, feeling that hope was vain—that it was only a question of death within the building or without, of being buried beneath the sinking roof ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... of every member of society to give his fellows the benefit of his labours for whatever they may he worth. Just as I am confident that truth must in the end be the most profitable for the race, so I am persuaded that every individual endeavour to attain it, provided only that such endeavour is unbiassed and sincere, ought without hesitation to be made the common property of all men, no matter in what direction the results of its promulgation may appear to tend. And so far as the ruination of individual ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... et Inferno; or A Treatise concerning Heaven and Hell, and of the wonderful Things therein heard and seen. London, 1758, 4to. "By this work the reader may attain to some conception of the heavenly kingdom, and may learn therein that all social virtues, and all the tender affections that give consistence and harmony to society, and do honour to humanity, find place and exercise in the utmost purity in those delectable abodes; where every thing that can delight ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... purpose. So long as we have sufficient firmness, fortified by cheerfulness, to always acknowledge foreign hostile influences for what they really are, whilst we quietly pursue the path pointed out to us by both inclination and calling, then this mysterious power perishes in its futile struggles to attain the form which is to be the reflected image of ourselves. It is also certain, Lothair adds, that if we have once voluntarily given ourselves up to this dark physical power, it often reproduces within us the strange forms which the outer world throws in our way, so that thus it is we ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... whom he naively inquired how to mix a two-sided cosmetic which should produce effects appropriate to the diversified nature of the human epidermis. Truly scientific men—men who are really great in the sense that they never attain in their lifetime the renown which their immense and unrecognized labors deserve—are nearly always kind, and willing to serve the poor in spirit. Vauquelin accordingly patronized the perfumer, and allowed him to call himself the inventor of a paste to whiten the hands, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... results? Wonderful, he thought—and yet not wholly attributable to his peculiar mode of tutelage. For, after all, his work had been little more than the holding of her mind unwarped, that her instinctive sense of logic might reach those truthful conclusions which it was bound to attain if guided safely past the tortuous shifts of human speculation and undemonstrable theory. To his great joy, these six years had confirmed a belief which he had held ever since the troublous days of his youth, namely, that, as a recent writer has said, "adolescent understanding ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... from the ease with which all was moving. A few minutes more of this as against a lifetime of wealth and power! It was worth the degradation. "It is sometimes necessary to walk through filth and slime to attain high places," he remembered Gorham ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... slaveholders who had been members formed branches of the American Colonization Society, while the radical element fell back upon organizing branches of the Underground Railroad to cooperate with those of their number who, seeing that it was impossible to attain their end in the Southern mountains, had moved into the Northwest Territory to colonize the freedmen and aid the escape of slaves.[47] Among these workers who had thus changed their base of operation were not only such noted men as Joshua Coffin, Benjamin Lundy, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... him under the emperor. Moreover, he was jealous, and not without cause, of the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento, who had rallied to the pope, and was anxious to have them under his feet. This, too, he may have hoped to attain as King of Italy and the emperor's ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... fault he was ready to make amends for it, the more willingly as he felt himself to be superior to every kind of prejudice—and in fact—was ready to marry Malanya. In uttering these words Ivan Petrovitch did undoubtedly attain his object; he so astonished Piotr Andreitch that the latter stood open-eyed, and was struck dumb for a moment; but instantly he came to himself, and just as he was, in a dressing-gown bordered with squirrel fur and slippers on his bare feet, he ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... determined not to give way to them; and she was in fact gradually schooling herself to a calmer frame of mind, when suddenly a thing happened that bereft her in a moment of all the composure she had striven so hard to attain. A man's hand shot—swiftly and stealthily—from behind her and covered her eyes in a flash, while a man's voice, soft and exultant, said mockingly ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... other side to Panboro and there linked up with an eastbound freight that the Hercules 0001 snatched over the mountain to Hammon at a pace slightly exceeding forty-five miles an hour—at least twice the speed that any two oil-burning locomotives could attain. As for the Jandels, they were not in the same class at ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton
... intolerable wrongs done and planned against us by the sinister masters of Germany have long since become too grossly obvious and odious to every true American to need to be rehearsed. But I shall ask you to consider again and with a very grave scrutiny our objectives and the measures by which we mean to attain them; for the purpose of discussion here in this place is action, and our action must move straight toward definite ends. Our object is, of course, to win the war; and we shall not slacken or suffer ourselves to be diverted until it is won. But it is worth while asking and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Woodrow Wilson • Woodrow Wilson
... Saint George, pricking forward his steed. "If we stop to admire all these separate wonders we shall never attain the great objects of our expedition." The Squire if he heard did not heed his master, for he kept gazing at the proceedings of the strange plant, and trying to count the number of insects it gobbled up in a minute. Thoughtlessly he drew closer and closer, till suddenly the monster plant ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... progress to the east of Ypres. On the 18th our cavalry even reached Roulers and Cortemark. But it was now evident that, in view of the continual reinforcing of the German right, our left was not capable of maintaining the advantages obtained during the previous few days. To attain our end and make our front inviolable a fresh effort was necessary. That effort was immediately made by the dispatch to the north of the Lys of considerable French forces, which formed ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... wants so competent a colleague removed from the political sphere. If his words and actions are of a piece, he will certainly work hard to attain this object. He is saying everywhere, 'Orange is a born ecclesiastic. Orange is a mystic. Orange is under the influence of Newman. Orange begins to see that marriage is not for him.' Such remarks don't help outside the Church. Really, ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... dear sir, with what remote and uncertain contingencies I am obliged to connect my great hope; you observe how anxiously I cling to feeble possibilities to attain a priceless boon. Was that promise ever fulfilled, and could it have been? My eternally unlucky star almost forbids me to believe it. The question, however, I owed to myself, and all I ask for at present is the honour of a Yes or ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... curves, as such, but their relationship to theoretic conceptions, that we have now to consider. By the action of the bar magnet upon the needle we obtain the notion of a polar force; by the breaking of the strip of magnetized steel we attain the notion that polarity can attach itself to the ultimate particles of matter. The experiment with the iron filings introduces a new idea into the mind; the idea, namely, of structural arrangement. Every ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... first of special reasons for it in the writings themselves. And I am too backward a pupil yet. That blent transmission must go on without any choice of ours; but what we can't hinder must not make our rule for what we ought to choose. I think our duty is faithful tradition where we can attain it. And so you would insist for any one but yourself. Don't ask me to deny my spiritual parentage, when I am finding the clue of my life in ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and pleasure in poetry is the greatest of literary pleasures. It is also the least easy to attain and there are some people who never do attain it. I met some one the other day who did not care for poetry at all; it gave her no pleasure, no satisfaction, and only caused her to reflect how much better the thought, so it seemed to her, could be expressed in prose. In the same way there ...
— Recreation • Edward Grey
... of opinion that, although she showed all plain sail, up to her royals, she was scarcely doing three knots. This was all in their favour, for while the smoothening of the sea's surface enabled Leslie to attain a much more satisfactory rate of speed with the same moderate amount of exertion, the low rate of sailing of the on-coming vessel rendered it certain that, apart from accident, they would now assuredly be able to reach her. And by the time that this had become an undoubted fact, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Natural Right, and in the same author's Letters on Freedom. Surprise may be felt that a man of the kind should put himself to so much trouble; for, on the face of it, if he would only examine the matter for himself, he would speedily attain his object by the exercise of a little thought. But there is a small difficulty in the way. It does not depend upon his own will. A man can always sit down and read, but not—think. It is with thoughts as with men; they cannot always be summoned at ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... came to a place which is called Ard Mantain, near the river Sinna; but being unwilling to remain in that place, he said: "I will not live in this place: for here shall be great abundance of the things of this life, and earthly joy; and hardly could the souls of my disciples attain to heaven, were I to have dwelt here, for this place belongs to the ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... fundamental, that preserves their influence in other lives. They help us by opening and directing the spiritual powers we have in common; and beyond our own experience we believe in their counsels as leading to what we in our turn may somewhat attain to in the life they followed. It is not what they believed of God, but what God accomplished in them, that holds our attention; and we interpret it only by what ourselves have known of his dealing with us. It is life, and the revelation of God there ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... bring us a long way toward the goal. In many cases it may suffice. But the profound, the Freudian analysis, is what we need if we wish to attain the radical cure of psychoneurosis, as far as we can ever speak of a radical cure. Many cases of illness do not lend themselves to ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... already long list of successful inventors, each year adds many more, who have become independent through the proper handling of the product of their ingenuity. Indeed there can hardly be conceived a quicker way for the average person to attain independence and wealth than by inventing something of real worth and merit that can be quickly turned into money. The inventive field is large, and each invention opens up a new field for improvements, ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... hills of Habersham, Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover's pain to attain the plain Far from the hills of Habersham, Far from the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... George Spencer, Herbert's father, nor Thomas, his uncle, seemed ever to anticipate that they were helping to develop the greatest thinker of his time. They themselves were obscure men, and quite happy therein, and if young Herbert could attain to a fair degree of physical health, make his living as an honest surveyor or as a teacher of mathematics, it would be all one could reasonably hope for. And thus they lived out the measure of their days, and passed away unaware that this boy they claimed in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... owing to their high volatile content, require that the air be heated to a higher temperature than it is possible for it to attain simply in its passage through the fire and by absorption from the side walls of the furnace. Such coals can be burned with the best results under fire brick arches. Such arches increase the temperature of the furnace and in this way maintain the heat that must ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... of some difficulty; and then merely to be upon an equality, merely to be admitted and suffered at parties, is awkward and humiliating. Noble ambition prompted them continually to aim at distinction. The desire to attain il poco piu—the little more, stimulates to excellence, or betrays to ruin, according to the objects of our ambition. No artist ever took more pains to surpass Raphael or Correggio than was taken ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... to Shelley: 'You are still very young, and in certain essential respects you do not yet sufficiently perceive that you are so.' It is seldom that the young know what youth is, till they have got beyond its period; and time was not given him to attain this knowledge. It must be remembered that there is the stamp of such inexperience on all he wrote; he had not completed his nine-and-twentieth year when he died. The calm of middle life did not add the seal of the virtues which adorn maturity ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... that which the old man had promised him. He acquainted her with that which he had seen [in his sleep] and she fell to condoling with him and comforting him, saying, "Grieve not, O my son, for, an God the Most High have appointed thee aught of [good] fortune, thou wilt attain thereto without either travail or toil; but I would have thee be understanding and discreet and leave these things which have brought thee to poverty, O my son, and eschew singing-wenches and the commerce of youths and women; all this is for the baser sort, not ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... the philosopher, "at my possessing so simple a piece of information. It has cost me but little trouble to attain it, yet I would gladly hope that the labour I have taken in that matter may convince you of my real desire to ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... extraordinary had recourse to him. This conduct caused him to be hated by many of the highest distinction; and their hatred increased to such a degree that the Neri faction to which he belonged, became completely divided; for Corso, to attain his ends, had availed himself of private force and authority, and of the enemies of the state. But so great was the influence attached to his person, that everyone feared him. Nevertheless, in order to strip him of the popular favor (which by this means may easily ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... course, even begin as yet to comprehend the magnitude that the tiny whirlpool of discontented and lawless schemers would attain. But boy though I was, in those first months of the voyage I had learned enough about the different members of the crew to realize that serious consequences might grow from ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... year 1770, Patrick Kerr set about to put an end to Abbotrule Parish and Abbotrule Kirk, that had seen many an open-air Sacrament on summer Sabbaths long ago. For four years the laird laboured to attain his end, and a blithe man was he when, in 1774, he got Eliott of Stobs and Douglas of Douglas to side with him and wipe out for evermore the kirk and parish of Abbotrule. The parish was joined to the parishes of Hobkirk and Southdean, and the glebe—twenty-five acres of good land—which should ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... greater the abstraction the greater the truth, and he is always tending to see abstractions within abstractions; which, like the ideas in the Parmenides, are always appearing one behind another. Hence we find a difficulty in following him into the sphere of thought which he is seeking to attain. First in his scale of goods he places measure, in which he finds the eternal nature: this would be more naturally expressed in modern language as eternal law, and seems to be akin both to the finite and to the mind or cause, which were two of the elements in the former table. Like the ...
— Philebus • Plato
... most marvellous work of its wonderful author."—New York World. "We touch regions and attain altitudes which it is not given to the ordinary novelist even to approach."—London Times. "In no other story has Mrs. Ward approached the brilliancy and vivacity of Lady Rose's ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... of difficulties, none of which escaped me, traced as many lines upon my forehead as if I had been commanded to solve at once all the propositions in Euclid. She shall love me! these words flashed unceasingly before my eyes; but the means to attain this end? No satisfactory plan came to me. Women are so capricious, deep, and unfathomable! It is, with them, the thing soonest done which is soonest ended! A false step, the least awkwardness, a want of intelligence, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... into the empyrean, far, far above the commonplace; the "Coursing Hound," with its faded sign and weatherbeaten gables, has been lost to view long and long ago (if it ever really existed), and to-night he stands above the clouds, his foot upon the topmost pinnacle; and surely man can attain no higher, for ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... life with one foot in the grave. He called attention to Uncle Capen's virtues, and pointed out their connection with his longevity. He had not smoked for some forty years; therefore, if the youth who were present desired to attain his age, let them not smoke. He had been a total abstainer, moreover, from his seventieth year; let them, if they would rival his longevity, follow his example. The good man closed with a feeling allusion to the relatives, in the front pew, mourning like the disciples of John the Baptist after ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... burden of debt came back to her, of the bill that he could not meet, of the list of his liabilities which he had been so loath to give her, and she told herself that he had desired nothing but her wealth and the position that she could give him. To attain his own ends he had made a stepping-stone of her. He was welcome to do so. She would make it easy for him to use her money, so that he need never know the humiliation of applying to her for it. Now that she understood what he wanted, she would never ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... warlike, and of good descent, he constituted himself the champion of hereditary privileges, and as such virtually threw down the gauntlet to his imperial master. Open rebellion, however, was not the plan which he proposed to himself by which to attain the object dearest to his heart—the re-embodiment of the Janissaries, and the establishment of the old order of things. To this end he consented, in 1823, to make a demonstration against the Greek rebels, but took very good care not to render too much ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... capacitated for enjoyments of a higher and more perfect nature than we can attain to on earth. Of this we are sensible from the fact, that there is no condition in which we can be placed here below, that is so adapted to our nature as to afford us permanent satisfaction. Uninterrupted felicity ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... beyond the apprehension of man's mind, and as far as I can by diligent reading of Mr. Spencer attain to his innermost meaning, I do not think he denies this fact, as he most unquestionably does not deny the validity of religious motion, which, arguing against the Positivist philosophy, he rightly contends cannot, ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan |
