Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Ambition   /æmbˈɪʃən/   Listen
Ambition

noun
1.
A cherished desire.  Synonyms: aspiration, dream.
2.
A strong drive for success.  Synonym: ambitiousness.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Ambition" Quotes from Famous Books



... Bundelkund in the year 1849. He married a noble Indian lady, who was imbued with an ambition not less ardent than that by which he was inspired. Two children were born to them, whom they tenderly loved. But domestic happiness did not prevent him from seeking to carry out the object at which he aimed. He waited ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... will do well," said Count Ostermann. "I may venture to say so, as I have no longer the least ambition—death will soon relieve me from all participation in affairs of state. I am a feeble old man, and desire nothing more than to be allowed occasionally to impart good counsels to my benefactors. And this ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... a while ago he had been happy there. Only an hour or two since he was meditating, between the moves of the game, on the very words he meant to use in telling Irene that he loved her. Only an hour or two since every thought was full of hope and ambition, since the path of honour stood wide open with a vague bright figure beckoning ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray

... feeble health has its compensations, especially for those who unite restless vanity and ambition to a feminine desire for sympathy. It has been much the habit of Mr. Stephens to date controversial epistles from "a sick chamber," as do ladies in a delicate situation. A diplomatist of the last century, the Chevalier D'Eon, by usurping the privileges ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... because "honesty is the best policy," but because it is a duty to God and to man. The heart that can be gratified by dishonest gains; the ambition that can be satisfied by dishonest means; the mind that can be devoted to dishonest purposes, must be of the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... him?" she thought. "I love the other man, but if I cannot win him, I shall gratify my ambition by marrying Haughton Hall, and in petting my idol gratify myself; and so to pet my old ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... (or I much am wrong) It is not beauty lures thy vows, Rather ambition's gilded crown Makes thee forget thy ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... received proposals of marriage from Mr. Joseph Fry of London. His family, also Quakers, were wealthy and of good position; but for some time Elizabeth seemed to hesitate about entering on married life. Far from looking on marriage as the goal of her ambition, as is the fashion with many young women, she was divided in her mind as to the relative advantages of single and married life, as they might affect philanthropic and religious work. After consultation with her friends, however, the offer was accepted, and on August ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... "Chawming weather, moddom!" (which is usually a black lie) and pass them on to the staff, who do the actual work. I shouldn't mind going on like this for the next few years, but Mr. Faucitt is determined to sell. I don't know if you are like that, but every other Englishman I've ever met seems to have an ambition to own a house and lot in Loamshire or Hants or Salop or somewhere. Their one object in life is to make some money and "buy back the old place"—which was sold, of course, at the end of act one to pay ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... others trust it is only a gas explosion. I shock my group by hoping it is a bomb, so that I may say I have heard it go off. But I know nothing till I read "Paris Day by Day" next evening in "The Daily Telegraph," and find that my ambition has been gratified, and that the chief victim of the explosion is a Decadent Poet. Has any one been taking seriously Nordau's cry for the ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... nun apprised the Chang family that the major had actually suppressed his indignation, hushed his complaints, and taken back the presents of the previous engagement. But who would have ever anticipated that a father and mother, whose hearts were set upon position and their ambition upon wealth, could have brought up a daughter so conscious of propriety and so full of feeling as to seize the first opportunity, after she had heard that she had been withdrawn from her former intended, and been promised to the Li family, to stealthily devise a way to commit suicide, by means of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... under rent, and for a long tenure, almost universally leads to poverty and ruin; and any person who knows the Irish character can easily account for this seeming anomaly. The love of display and the spirit of ambition which pervade all classes in Ireland, leads every one to assume a station, and incur an expenditure, far beyond what his circumstances would entitle him to. The shopkeeper styles himself a merchant, and must have a car and a country-house; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... an opportunity to prove to him that I was not an unworthy son, and that I had courage and bravery. It was not long before we met the enemy and a battle immediately ensued. Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist and tear the scalp from off his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushed furiously upon another and smote him to the earth with my tomahawk. I then ran my lance through his body, took off his scalp and returned in triumph to my father. He said nothing but looked well pleased. This was the first ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk

... animated by the death of Ysiaslaf, soon found enthusiastic adventurers rallying around his banners. He marched vigorously to Kief, drove Rostislaf from the capital and seized the scepter. But there was no lull in the tempest of human ambition. Georges had attained the throne by the energies of his sword, and, acting upon the principle that "to the victors belong the spoils," he had driven from their castles all the lords who had been supporters ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott

... and virtue were as natural as her prejudices; she believed that marriage was the close of female ambition, and marrying her children was the only innovation to be permitted. Certain accomplishments she thought due to woman, but none of them must become masculine in prosecution; a professional woman she ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... "Let craft, ambition, spite, Be quenched in Reason's night, Till weakness turn to might, Till what is dark be light, Till what is ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll

... possessed the sneaking, cringing, treacherous character traditionally ascribed to people of mixed blood—the character which the blessed institutions of a free slave-holding republic had been well adapted to foster among them; had they been selfish enough to sacrifice to their ambition the mother who gave them birth, society would have been placated or humbugged, and the voyage of their life might have ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... sparkle of electricity like pendant diamonds—made the Quarter seem fuller of life than ever. These fall days make the little ouvrieres trip along from their work with rosy cheeks, and put happiness and ambition ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... office, Mr. Blair. I'm fifty-four years of age. I am on the hilltop of life. The way leads down a gentle slope, I trust, to a valley of peace, love and happiness. Ambition does not lure me; I have lived. I have played my part as well as I know how. I am content. I love my Country, North and South, East and West. I am a trained ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... alluring figures, that seem to glean gratefully after the steps of labor, is the negro's manifesto of the French slave-trade. The surprising totals betray the sudden development of that iniquity under the stimulus of national ambition. The slave expresses his misery in the ciphers of luxury. The single article of sugar, which lent a new nourishment to the daily food of every country, sweetened the child's pap, the invalid's posset, and the drinks of rich and poor, yielded its property ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various

... which province he belonged, had just been annexed to France. A party of guides from Chamouni had the day before succeeded, with difficulty, in planting the imperial flag on the summit of Mont Blanc. Was it this which had awakened the ambition of the young Savoyard to share the spoils of the empire of which he had so suddenly become a member? Perhaps (I never thought of it before, but perhaps) he was already seeking means for his journey to the capital. Perhaps the price of his hard-won service was to be the nucleus ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various

... of this tragicall warre, the Moscouite, to cloke his tyranny and ambition vnder some faire pretense amongst other of his demaunds, made mention also of a tribute which should be due vnto him out of the bishop of Dorpat his iurisdiction, whereof notwithstanding hee could neither bring any iust account, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, • Richard Hakluyt

... him but too well. Ambition was awakened in this young maiden of eighteen years; it was an imperial crown that called her—why should she not listen to this call coming from the lips of one in whom she had unlimited confidence, and toward whom ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... at a distance, was the improvement of the finances, and the restoration of order in several branches of the administration. Napoleon was obliged to begin by the good to arrive at the bad; he was obliged to increase the French army, before he could employ it for the purposes of his personal ambition. ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... ambition, that passion was, in his bosom, so regulated by principles, or controlled by circumstances, that it was neither vicious, nor turbulent. Intrigue was never employed as the means of its gratification, nor was personal aggrandizement its object. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... Ladies slowly increased in numbers, keeping their school and struggling against poverty, all the time endeavoring to become established as members of the Visitation Order. At last their hope and ambition came to pass, and, in 1816, they were regularly established as the Georgetown ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker

... and giving in marriage, it was just as though he had died and gone to heaven. Heaven is the absence of worry and of ambition. Heaven is where you want nothing you haven't got. Heaven is finality. And this was finality. On the September morning, after the honeymoon and the settling down, he arose leisurely, long after his wife, and, putting on the puce dressing-gown (which Alice much ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett

... flies off the saddle at a tangent, and finds that his "vaulting ambition" had o'erleap'd itself, and fallen on the other side - ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... Johnson's personality, ambition, and administrative strategy. If many of his associates questioned his personal commitment to the principle of integration, or indeed even his private feeling about President Truman's order, all recognized his political ambition and penchant for vigorous and direct ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... and he deprived of his great patron, [he] had nothing to depend upon but the fortune of his wife: which, though ample enough to have supported the expense a person of his quality ought to have made, was not large enough to satisfy his vanity and ambition, nor so great as he upon common reports had possessed himself by her. By being not enough pleased with her fortune he grew displeased with his wife, who, being a woman of a haughty and imperious nature and of a wit superior ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... him the whole-souled enthusiasm with which he set about his tasks. How completely he dedicated himself to the artistic duty was illustrated when, in the season of 1887-88, he realized what had been the ambition of years, and gave a first performance of Siegfried in "Gtterdmmerung." He had studied the part a dozen years before in the hope of appearing in it at the first Bayreuth festival; but Wagner did not want the illusion spoiled by presenting the actor of Siegmund on one ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... the Executive Council board, or not. Personally, Charles Sumner would gain nothing by a transfer from the Senate Chamber to the State Department. He does not need a place in the American cabinet any more than John Bright does in the British. The highest ambition might well be satisfied with his present position, from which, looking back upon an honorable record, he might be justified in using Milton's language of lofty confidence in the reply to Salmasius: "I am not one who has disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of conduct, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... sole monarch of the world. But I plainly protested that I would never be the means of bringing a free and brave people into slavery; and though the wisest of the Ministers were of my opinion, my open refusal was so opposed to his Majesty's ambition that he could never forgive me. And from this time a plot began between himself and those of his Ministers who were my enemies, that nearly ended in my ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various

... here in Saumur so many men in arms," said he. "I fear that you think the peasants of our country have turned themselves into soldiers, that we might become generals, and play at being great men. Indeed, such is not the case; if personal ambition has brought you here, you had better leave us. We have come here to fight, and very probably to die for our King and our religion; and, being called upon to act as leaders, we must bear a heavier share of the burden, and undergo ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do it. Examples gross as earth excite me: Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd, Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare, Even for an egg-shell. 'Tis not to be great, Never to stir without great argument; But greatly ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... here, Reade," declared the physician. "Almost any ambition that money will gratify will soon be yours. From the very appearance of this newly-opened vein I don't believe it is one that will give out ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock

... to ambition like success. Every day the widow thought, and toiled, and kept her eyes open for chances for her boys. "For, after all," said she, "twenty-one dollars a month is all too small to kape six b'ys and mesilf when the winter's a-comin', and 'twon't be twenty-one ...
— The Widow O'Callaghan's Boys • Gulielma Zollinger

... with an ineffable sadness, "I am naught but a wanderer upon the face of the earth. I have no ties, no kindred,—no real friends, save you and Dale, and some of these honest fellows whom I lead to slaughter. My ambition is seamed with a flaw. And all my life I must be striving, striving, until I am laid in the grave. I know that now, and it is you yourself who have taught me. For I have violently broken forth from those bounds which God in His ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the highest ambition of our people. They make the greatest mistakes who tell you that money is the master need of our race. They equally err who would fain fasten your attention upon the acknowledged political difficulties which confront us in the lawless sections of the land. ...
— Sparkling Gems of Race Knowledge Worth Reading • Various

... judgments; he hath judged the great whore, and avenged the blood of his servants,—with a numberless throng on his left hand of these miscreants sentenced unto that place of torment and woe, where they shall have an eternity to bewail their infidelity, impiety, avarice, ambition, cruelty, and stupidity in.—And, in fine, if the following hints shall serve for no other purpose, they will stand for an incontestable evidence of the very first principle of religion, that there is a God to reward the righteous and punish the wicked:—So that men shall say, Verily, there is a ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... transferred his affections to his grandson, whom he looked upon as his successor. Reginald did his best to make amends to her for the change in their grandfather's manner; but she seemed rather pleased than otherwise, having had no ambition to occupy the exalted position to which she had been destined. Perhaps she reflected that it might remove all objections the rajah would have entertained with regard to bestowing her hand on ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston

... but one long death?" he went on, with sudden violence. "Our pleasures, our hopes, our youth are all dying; ambition dies, and even desire at last; our passions and tastes will die, or will live only to mourn their dead opportunity. The happiness of love dies with the loss of the loved, and, worst of all, love itself grows old in our hearts and dies. Why should we shrink only from the one death which can free ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... The ambition of Theodore was still boundless. He gathered an increased following, conquered tribe after tribe in Abyssinia proper, and prosecuted a most successful crusade in the country of the Gallas, subduing descendants of those who had wrought havoc in his native land from time to time, and ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... She who would give life to others, what was her life to be henceforth? The mellowing sorrow, which her vivacity could not hide, smote him again, as it had that evening in Mexico when he came to her for counsel. He remembered. Out of a useless ambition for her country she had squandered her name, blighted her future. He remembered how, looking on her saddened face, he had been exalted to a pure devotion, and had burned with knightly fervor to do her some ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle

... spirit. Midsummer eve of 1850 could clearly make no spiritual change in the king or his people—such they would be on the morning after St. John's day, as on the morning before it—i. e., filled with all elements (though possibly undeveloped) of strife, feud, pernicious ambition, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... a valley in South England remote from ambition and from fear, where the passage of strangers is rare and unperceived, and where the scent of the grass in summer is breathed only by those who are native to that unvisited land. The roads to the Channel ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc

... the early Greeks the fall of Troy or the labors of Hercules, his work (taking the place which those of Homer have unfortunately occupied) as a splendid model for all succeeding ages, would have given a very different turn to the pursuits of heroes and the policy of nations. Ambition might then have become a useful passion, ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... Villiers great master.] And here it is manifestly to bee vnderstood of all men, that after the death of the noble and right prudent lord, Fabrice of Cacetto, great master of Rhodes, the sayd Sir Andrew enflamed with ambition and couetousnesse to bee great master, and seeing himselfe deceiued of his hope, by the election made the two and twentieth day of Ianuary, of the right reuerend and illustrate lord, Philip de Villiers Lisleadam, before him: from that time hee tooke so great enuie and ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... had shown a guilty ambition in a more covert way. Understanding that Darius had issued a gold coinage of remarkable purity, he, on his own authority and without consulting the king, issued a silver coinage of a similar character. There is reason to believe that he ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson

... teacher, was expected the next day but one. Henry had pottered about the place, and attended to some ploughing on the famous White grass-land, which was supposed to produce more hay than any piece of land of its size in the county. Henry had been fired with ambition to produce more than ever before, but that day his spirit had seemed to fail him. He sat about gloomily all the afternoon; then he went down for the evening mail, and brought home no letters, but the local paper. Sylvia was preparing supper in the large, clean kitchen. She ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... spirit of "non-separateness" is inculcated as steadily from childhood up, as in the West the spirit of rivalry. Personal ambition, personal feelings and desires, are not encouraged to grow so rampant there. When the soil is naturally good, it is cultivated in the right way, and the child grows into a man in whom the habit of subordination of one's lower to one's ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky

... war, dayly experience teacheth vs, that some vpon no iust & lawful grounds (being egged on by ambition, enuie, and couetise) are induced to follow the armie, and on the contrary side, that others arme themselues vpon iust and necessary causes: namely such as go to battell for the defence and propagation of the Gospel, or such as being any way prouoked thereunto, doe withstand ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... flattered her as she had never been flattered, not too subtly, yet not so broadly as to arouse her suspicion of his intent. He spoke quietly at first, then his voice seeming charged with his leaping ambition set responsive chords within her thrilling. He pictured to her the state he was going to found, organize, rule, an uncertain number of fair miles stretching along a tropical coast; he made her see again a palatial dwelling with servants in livery, the blue waters of the Gulf, the white ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory

... Greece and Rome, He is almost entirely obscured, "an unknown God ignorantly worshipped"—the End, as usual, being forgotten and buried in the means. All this process of degradation will be hastened by the corruption of priests whose avarice or ambition, as Mr. Lang says, will tempt them to exploit the lucrative elements in religion at the expense of the ethical; to whittle-away the decrees of God and conscience to suit the wealthy and easy-going; to substitute purchasable sacrifice, for obedience; and the fat of rams, for charity. We ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... leading men of to-day, were at one time country school teachers. They exercised a great influence upon the pupils. They were the angels who put the coals of fire upon the lips of the young men, giving them the ambition that made for future greatness. The country schools now are not so good as they were twenty years ago. The chief reason is that their ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy

... ANNE BOLEYN, QUEEN OF HENRY VIII. In the records of biography there is no character that more forcibly exemplifies the vanity of human ambition, or more thoroughly enlists the attention of the reader than this—the Seventh American, and from the Third London Edition. By MISS BENGER. With portrait ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings

... and ambition of a gentlewoman called Tanaquil, the Queene and wife of Tarqvinivs Priscvs the fift Roman king, with his persuasions and pollicy to hir husbande for his aduauncement to the kingdom, her lyke encouragement of Servivs Tvllivs, ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter

... through which our road lay, I fancied I saw the great elms of Newtown, the wide, straight street, the familiar house, an open door, and—ah! It wasn't the first time I had been taken in at that door, the survivor of wrecked ambition and misguided hope, only to hear my shortcomings made tenderly light of, my most desperate ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... could bring happiness, then surely Eveline Merivale should have been the most envied woman in the world. A renowned beauty, a leader of fashion, with every wish and ambition gratified—save the one which, at present, the chief object of her life—to enslave and retain, as ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... and sounds, all should aid a skilled writer of articles to turn his energies, with some hope of achievement, toward producing fiction. The hand that can fashion a really vivid article holds out promise of being able to compose a convincing short story, if grit and ambition help push ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing

... fling away ambition. By that sin fell the angels: how can man, then, The image of his Maker, hope ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 8 - Talmage to Knox Little • Grenville Kleiser

... state, he had turned his energies into the pursuit of pleasure, and had been leading a gay and dissolute life. His accession to power was, however, speedily to prove that he was possessed of great abilities, a masterful will and a keen and eager ambition. He had strongly disapproved of the trend of the peace negotiations at Muenster, and would have preferred with the help of the French to have attempted to drive the Spaniards out of the southern Netherlands. The preliminaries were, however, already settled in the spring ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... a telescope, because, even if learning were general, there are people who prefer to examine things through a microscope to studying the starry heavens. Some like statues, some like pictures. A particular individual has no other ambition than to possess a good piano, while another is pleased with an accordion. The tastes vary, but the artistic needs exist in all. In our present, poor capitalistic society, the man who has artistic needs cannot satisfy ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... as the incident of their locking out, may have had something to say to it. Anyway, a new reflective temper set in. The young immature creature became self-conscious, began to feel the ferments of growth. The ambition and the restlessness his father had foreseen, with ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... think so?" replied Walker; "well, if we had only the means I would certainly have her trained, for, since she has seen Mademoiselle B—— act, her great ambition seems to be to occupy a similar position." After further conversation it was agreed to place Margery under the care of Mrs. L——, with a view of becoming a professional actress; for, although Walker ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer

... and look after the repairs and the police and taxes while I run the business. I never had a dollar of my own invested in my life. I wouldn't know how it felt to have the dealer rake in a coin of mine. But I can handle other people's stuff and manage other people's enterprises. I've had an ambition to get hold of something big—something higher than hotels and lumber-yards and local politics. I want to be manager of something way up—like a railroad or a diamond trust or an automobile factory. Now here comes this little man from the tropics with just what I ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry

... "charming Betty Careless" upon the bannisters, which he is supposed to scratch upon every wall and every wainscot,) and wrapt up so close in melancholy pensiveness, as not even to observe the dog that is flying at him. Behind him, and in the inner room, are two persons maddened with ambition. These men, though under the influence of the same passion, are actuated by different notions; one is for the papal dignity, the other for regal; one imagines himself the Pope, and saying mass; the other fancies himself a King, is encircled with the emblem of royalty, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler

... threatened or are threatening it, the losses which it has sustained, the capacities which may be yet latent in it, waiting to be evoked, the points in which it transcends other tongues, in which it comes short of them, all this may well be the object of worthy ambition to every one of us. So may we hope to be ourselves guardians of its purity, and not corrupters of it; to introduce, it may be, others into an intelligent knowledge of that, with which we shall have ourselves more than a merely superficial ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench

... world. This day the father took rather more than half the charge of the provision supply, and with considerable regularity. During four hours that the nest was closely watched, its tenants were fed at about five-minute intervals for half an hour; and then mamma promptly smothered their ambition, as above mentioned, for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when, if they did not take naps like "good little birdies," they at least were ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... virtuous Wife, where thou again dost meet Both Pleasures more refin'd and sweet: The fairest Garden in her Looks, And in her Mind the wisest Books. Oh! who would change these soft, yet solid Joys, For empty Shows and senseless Noise; And all which rank Ambition breeds, Which seem such beauteous Flowers, ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn

... choose where and how I would be admired, if ever such a luxury could come to me, I would be Joe Wurzel under present circumstances. A young hero, handsome, tall, in the uniform of the Hussars, with a loved one near and all the village girls fixing their eyes on me! That for once only, and my utmost ambition would be gratified. Life could have no greater pride for me. I don't know whether the sermon made much impression that day, but of the two, I verily believe Joe made the most; and as they streamed out ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris

... His great ambition was to acquire a "mustang pony," for all the adventurous spirits of the dime novels he had known carried revolvers and rode mustangs. He did not read much, but when he did it was always some tale of fighting. He was too restless and active to continue at a ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... offends continually. But, nevertheless, a great Part of one's Life is lost in Excess, Lust, Ambition, and other Vices; but a much greater Part is lost in doing of nothing. Moreover they are said to do nothing, not who live in Idleness, but they who are busied about frivolous Things which conduce nothing at all to our Happiness: And ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... been the one ambition of her mind during these three or four years to speak English like an Englishwoman, and she has very nearly succeeded, only there is still a rhythm left ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... ready—all faithful," groaned the king, "and, Ornethelo, they may all have to perish to-day, and all for our ambition. Poor mortals!" ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben

... Huff, after a deal of blustering, wenching, and bullying, died, and was succeeded by a good-natured boy {161a}, who, giving way to the general bent of his tenants, allowed Martin's notions to spread everywhere, and take deep root in Ambition. How, after his death, the farm fell into the hands of a lady {161b}, who was violently in love with Lord Peter. How she purged the whole country with fire and sword, resolved not to leave the name or remembrance of Martin. How Peter triumphed, ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift

... poet Becquer[1] in the golden days of his youth, when his veins were swelling with health, when his heart was fired with ambition, and in his ears was ringing the ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

... am aware of. He shows so little ambition to excel in any particular branch that I should say his choice of a profession may be best determined by his parents. I am, of course, ignorant whether his relatives possess influence likely to be of use to him. That is often the chief point to be considered, particularly ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... Wilmot's ambition was to become a public man and to assist in the reformation of the constitution of his native province. He enjoyed many advantages for the role he had undertaken. He was tall, his height being upwards of six feet, well proportioned, handsome and striking in his features, and he possessed ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... Johnston, a widow, whom, when she was the maiden Sarah Bush, he had loved and courted, and by whom he had been refused. He now asked again, and with better success. The marriage was a little inroad of good luck into his career; for the new wife was thrifty and industrious, with the ambition and the capacity to improve the squalid condition of her husband's household. She had, too, worldly possessions of bedding and furniture, enough to fill a four-horse wagon. She made her husband put a floor, a door, and windows to his cabin. From the day of her advent ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse

... thousand Frenchmen and a thousand millions of francs, besides the indemnities, which amounted to fifteen hundred millions more. No language of denunciation could be stronger than that which went forth from the mouth of the whole nation in view of Napoleon's selfishness and ambition. But one voice was listened to, and that was the cry for vengeance; prudence, moderation, and justice were alike disregarded. All attempts to stem the tide of ultra-royalist violence were in vain. The king ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... to have any other ambition," he answered, wearily. "When I read in the paper this morning that you and your father were here, things seemed suddenly different. I came at once. I didn't know what I wanted until I saw you, but I know now, ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... civilized man is often compelled by necessity to adopt the methods of primitive beings. The rubbing of sticks is an emergency measure of the master of woodcraft at the present time, and the production of fire in this manner is the proud accomplishment or ambition of every ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh

... fellow-men. Our scales are not wisely balanced in this world—we cannot weigh motives against acts, thought against deeds, with atom-like precision, nor measure the tempted with the temptation grain by grain, hair by hair. Ambition was the fault of the seraphim in the commencement—be well assured that some of the old angelic leaven lingers still about all ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... it was her quietly fixed intention to assimilate, bespoke her possession of a brain the powers of which being concentrated on large affairs might have accomplished almost startling results. There was, however, nothing startling in her intentions, and ambition did not touch her. Yet, as she went with Hutchinson from one country to another, more than one man of affairs had it borne in upon him that her young slimness and her silence represented an unanticipated knowledge of points under discussion which might wisely be considered as a factor in ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... possible in Britain only in London, for the celebrities and their works are centred here. An unusually large proportion of the population is of the wealthy classes, for the height of the average Briton's ambition is, in addition to the essential estate in the country, to be in possession of a mansion in London. After these are acquired, and his wife and daughters have been presented at court, any after- successes may be regarded as details which ornament ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... outcome of the experiences of the American people in dealing with the West. Western democracy through the whole of its earlier period tended to the production of a society of which the most distinctive fact was the freedom of the individual to rise under conditions of social mobility, and whose ambition was the liberty and well-being of the masses. This conception has vitalized all American democracy, and has brought it into sharp contrasts with the democracies of history, and with those modern efforts of Europe to create an artificial democratic order ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... think that best of all Ecgbert would wish to come home in peace at once, and set all ambition aside. Presently, if we are careful, I may be able to speak to Offa of him again. Nay, but have no fear; I understand how matters are with Bertric, and will risk naught. I think we may find that Offa, who is friendly with King ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler

... year after, so much ridicule and rancour. He said—"Was it likely that he would resign the office of commander-in-chief," a situation so consonant to his feelings and his habits, "for the mere empty ambition of being placed at the head of the government. I know," continued the Duke, "I am disqualified for any such office; and I, therefore, say, that, feeling as I do with respect to the situation which I recently filled at the head of the army; ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... had so comfortingly said. How could it be otherwise when he had done nothing discreditable, but, on the contrary, had been developing himself in a way that reflected the highest credit upon his family, as it marched up toward the lofty goal of "cultured" ambition, toward high ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips

... made his bow, and took his leave. I proceeded on to the sign of the Crown and the Bible, where I found a large collection of people, coming in quest of tickets. As the elite of the town would not of themselves form an audience sufficiently large to meet the towering ambition of the players, more than half the tickets were sold, the money being appropriated to the sick families of soldiers—those who were not entitled to receive aid from government. It was deemed a high compliment to receive tickets gratis, though all who did, made it a point to leave a donation ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... "The ambition of my life is to sit on the supreme bench of some State," spoken by a fair-haired young man as he passed with a taller, older one. "Montana will be a State, some day," the would-be ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman

... may be so; but I believe there is more than that in it. I fear she is all outside. It is true her poetry is even passionate sometimes; but I suspect all her inspiration comes of the poetry she reads, not of the nature or human nature around her; it comes of ambition, not of love. I don't know much about verse, but to me there is an air of artificiality about all hers. I can not understand how you could praise her long poem so much—if you were in love with her. She has grown to ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald

... enjoyment of his home he had forgotten all about the Stamp Act, and scarcely remembered that there was a king across the ocean who had resolved to make tributaries of the New Englanders. Possibly, too, he had forgotten his own ambition, and would not have exchanged his situation at that moment to be governor ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... about, conjuring up scenes of days gone by—real scenes, actions on the stage of life; all gone! It quiets ambition! ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... successor of Roosevelt. This might be one reason for his antagonism toward the politicians of the old regime, such as Penrose, who have barred his way in that direction, and his fitful devotion to progressivism championed by others. The failure to realize this ambition might account in some measure for his later reticence and his suspicion of politicians in general. He has shown a pronounced distrust of them. The only exception has been the audacious Ambassador to the Court of Saint James who in his REVIEW and in his WEEKLY flattered the Senator from Idaho ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous

... false. It is a religion of Atheism. Instead of a Heavenly Father forgiving sin, and filial service from a pure heart, as the effect of love—it presents nothing to love, for its Deity is dead; nothing as the ultimate object of action but self; and nothing for man's highest and holiest ambition but annihilation." ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... payments to the papal chancery, and which was endeavouring to restore the papacy to evangelical poverty. The King of France and the Emperor, on the other hand, looked favourably on the Council when it essayed to bridle the ambition and greed of the Bishop ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... endeavoured to persuade the world that it was owing to my having a private amour with a Lady of distinction in the Austrian court, but that minister was too deeply immersed in state-intrigues, to know much about those of a more tender nature. The tumultuous hurry of business and ambition, left no room in his mind for the delicious delicacy of sentiment and passion, so very essential to ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... had been universally taken many a beautiful old cottage would have been spared to us, and our eyes would not be offended by the wondrous creations of the estate agents and local builders, who have no other ambition but to build cheaply. The contrast between the new and the old is indeed deplorable. The old cottage is a thing of beauty. Its odd, irregular form and various harmonious colouring, the effects of weather, time, and accident, environed with ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield

... soon discovered its unreality. From the renewal of hostilities, in May, 1803, until the final triumph of the allies, in 1815, the war resolved itself into a struggle between Napoleon and England. This young Corsican lieutenant had raised himself by sheer force of genius and unscrupulous ambition to absolute power. His scheme for the subjugation of Europe beat down every obstacle except the steady and unbending opposition of England. Pitt, who had withdrawn from the government because of the stupid ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... betrayed deep melancholy, his head forward with a stoop, but not bent like that of a conscience-stricken man. That head, large and powerful, which might contain the treasures necessary for a man of the highest ambition, looked as if it were loaded with thought; it was weighted with grief of mind, but there was no touch of remorse in his expression. As to his face, it may be summed up in a word. A common superstition has it that every human countenance ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac

... the minister might be seen joyful tears and a noble ambition; he bowed low and kissed the extended ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... spent on the river where he learned to handle a canoe and skiff; and before he was fourteen could swim and dive like a didapper. At that time his greatest ambition was to run the falls in a canoe; his next to be a ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... shortly. "Never mind what I am. Think! Think hard! By to-morrow you must decide! Are you content with your life? Does it satisfy you? You have everything else; have you ambition?" ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... fairly flooded his arteries with joy and tenderness. She had remembered him at a glance after the three long years! She had called him by name! Work, ambition, fame and disaster had not driven out the ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts

... he took office, in fact, Cornell had counted upon a renomination. He cleverly strengthened the State machine, surrounded himself with able lieutenants, and never failed to make appointments promotive of his ambition. The confirmation of Isaac V. Baker as superintendent of prisons with the aid of Tammany's three senators, especially illustrated his skill in reaching men. But he had done more than organise. His numerous ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... principles alike made him the consistent friend of religious liberty. It was generally supposed that his views of government were monarchical; and as he was the undoubted representative of the Irish monarchy, it was also believed that he had sufficient ambition to look forward to the time when independent Ireland would restore to him his family honours. The personal and moral influence of Mr. O'Brien were such as to qualify him to be a leader. He was much loved, and deserved to be so. As a man he was amiable, as a gentleman courteous, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... for their independence in the permanence of their appointments, but this only applies to those who have reached the summit of their profession, or are on the point of retiring, or have no further interest in promotion. The young magistrate who wants to get on, a perfectly legitimate ambition, is by no means independent, for if he does not give satisfaction, he may enjoy a peculiar kind of permanence, the permanence of standing still at the starting point. The only independent judges, to whom justice is the sole interest, are either those who have served for forty years or the President ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... the pale, listless woman on the lounge, who knows her mother's ambition has been sorely crossed ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Harry's estimation; for he waited all day, and all evening, without hearing a word from the firm of Wake & Wade. He had actually begun to doubt whether the accomplished young man had as much influence with the firm as he had led him to suppose. But his ambition would not permit him longer to be satisfied with the humble sphere of a stable boy; and he determined, if he did not hear from Edward, to ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic

... intent, intention, intentionality; purpose; quo animo[Lat]; project &c. 626; undertaking &c. 676; predetermination &c. 611; design, ambition. contemplation, mind, animus, view, purview, proposal; study; look out. final cause; raison d'etre[Fr]; cui bono[Lat]; object, aim, end; "the be all and the end all"; drift &c. (meaning) 516; tendency &c. 176; destination, mark, point, butt, goal, target, bull's-eye, quintain[obs3][medeival]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... may put the little chap to an inland trade where he is almost bound to become a lesser man than his father, be removed from the enlarging influence of the sea, and have it given him as the height of ambition to grow up a dram-drinking or psalm-smiting, Sunday-top-hatted tradesmen. Then I desire savagely to have the power of a God, not that I might direct his life—he can sail his own boat better than I,—but ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... striking divergences begin to appear. The play mood, instead of approaching the calm contemplative mood of the lover of beauty, involves feelings and impulses which lie at the roots of our practical interests, viz. ambition, rivalry and struggle. It has, moreover, in all its stages a palpable utility—-even though this is not realized by the player—-serving for the exercise and development of body, intelligence and character. Beauty and art rise high above play ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... one day sit on the throne of Granada, he impiously set the stars at defiance. "The sword of the executioner," said he, "shall prove the fallacy of those lying horoscopes, and shall silence the ambition ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving

... With ambition luring her on, a young choir soprano leaves the little village where she was born and the limited audience of St. Judo's to train for the opera in New York. She leaves love behind her and meets love more ardent but not more sincere in her new environment. ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale

... the best. Possesses a spark of ambition and is really trying to make a go of the farm, which is more than most of them do around here. His wife, by all accounts, is a wonder. Used to be the cook-housekeeper here when the Rafaels had the place. LeFleur still talks ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton

... persons will attaint Men, against whom there's no complaint. Hence simple folks too may be taught How to form judgments as they ought, And not see with another's glass; For things are come to such a pass, That love and hate work diff'rent ways, As int'rest or ambition sways. Them you may know, in them confide, Whom by experience you have tried. Thus have I made a long amends For that ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... been obliged to create a line of conduct for himself, having to deal with an entirely new combination of circumstances without any precedent to guide him. And he implored the Queen to believe that the accusations which had, of late, poured in against him, were prompted by the disappointed ambition and the jealousy of his enemies, and had not any solid ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps

... fausse humilite ne met plus en credit. Je scais ce que je vaux, et crois ce qu'on m'en dit, Pour me faire admirer je ne fais point de ligue; J'ai peu de voix pour moi, mais je les ai sans brigue; Et mon ambition, pour faire plus de bruit Ne les va point queter de reduit en reduit. Mon travail sans appui monte sur le theatre, Chacun en liberte l'y blame ou idolatre; La, sans que mes amis prechent leurs sentimens, J'arrache quelquefois ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... is not so. The excuse we are trying to make for the mechanicians is illusory. There is no mistaking their ambition, Notwithstanding the prudence of some and the equivocations in which others have rejoiced, they have drawn their definition in the absolute and not in the relative. To take their conceptions literally, ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet

... foe is never so noble nor so dangerous as when she is fallen, that the crowning triumph is that we celebrate over our conquering selves. Sir, you are right. Kindness, ay kindness after all. And with age, to become clement. Yes, ambition first; then, the rounded vanity - victory still novel; and last, as you say, the royal mood of the mature man; to abdicate for others . . . Sir, you touched me hard about my dead friend; still harder about my living duty; and I am not so young but ...
— The Plays of W. E. Henley and R. L. Stevenson

... vague dream in his eyes, and a vaguer, far-looming hope in his heart, is sitting on his trunk wondering at the variety of things Shakib is cramming into his. For our Scribe, we must not fail to remind the Reader, is contemplating great things of State, is nourishing a great political ambition. He will, therefore, bethink him of those in power at home. Hence these costly presents. Ay, besides the plated jewellery—the rings, bracelets, brooches, necklaces, ear-rings, watches, and chains—of which he is bringing enough to supply the peasants of three ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani

... general to whom he was secretary were remarkably well written, and that Dominick O'Reilly, Esq. returned to England, after several years' absence, not miraculously rich, but with a fortune equal to his wishes. His wishes were not extravagant: his utmost ambition was to return to his native country with a fortune that should enable him to live independently of all the world, especially of some of his relations, who had not used him well. His ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... stage as a member of Frank Benson's company, and in his time played many parts, receiving on one occasion a curtain call as the Ghost in Hamlet. This experience—with the early Stratford inspiration—probably fired his ambition to become a dramatist. The late Sir George Alexander produced Paolo and Francesca; Herod was acted in London by Beerbohm Tree, and in America by William Faversham. Neither of these plays was a failure, but it is ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps

... almost hope, in the event of a new administration of your affairs which shall confine itself to the same forbearance, and manifest no symptoms of intended interference, the objects of my arrangements will be effectually attained; for I leave them in the charge of agents whose interests, ambition, and every prospect of life are interwoven with their success, and the hand of Heaven has visibly blest the soil with every elementary source of progressive vegetation: but if a different policy shall be adopted, if new agents are sent into the country and armed with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... one throne and it cannot have three occupants[68]." Or, again, he cowed them by the sheer force of his personality: "If I were a weak man, I would flatter you," he once exclaimed. In the last resort he replied to their hints of his ambition and self-seeking by offering his resignation. Here again the logic of facts was with him. For many months he was the necessary man, and he and they ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... the energy of our desires had gone up in the ambition to avoid being cast on the beach. Now we saw that that was not enough. It was necessary to squeeze around the point where lay the Golden Horn, in order to avoid the fate that had overtaken her. Handy Solomon yelled something at us. We could not hear, but our own knowledge ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams

... serious looking canes they so carefully carry gave place to the foppish switches they so artfully carried in their younger days." Here the gilded doors of idleness and pleasure are ever ajar but they never lead to the halls of noble aims and the palaces of worthy ambition. Here the entrances are always crowded with that class of people whose motto is, "Things are good enough as they are," or "Eat, drink and be merry," or "We ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... self-knowledge. She was, my dear sir, what you suppose the true woman to be,—a bundle of blind instincts; and among these the strongest was that of property in her husband, and power over him. She had lived in her power over men; it was her field of ambition. She knew them thoroughly. Women are called ivy; and the ivy has a hundred little fingers in every inch of its length, that strike at every flaw and crack and weak place in the strong wall they mean to overgrow; and so had Lillie. She saw, at a glance, that the sober, thoughtful, ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... "the leaf-gold which the devil has laid over the backside of ambition, to make it glitter ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... calm and wise way," observes Mr. Justin M'Carthy, "did the husband of the Queen, who had always shared with her whatever of danger there might be in the attempts, argue as to the manner in which they ought to be dealt with." The historian adds, "The ambition which moved most or all the miscreants who thus disturbed the Queen and the country, was that of the mountebank rather than the assassin." It merited contempt no less than severity. A bill was brought forward on the 12th ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler



Words linked to "Ambition" :   status seeking, aspiration, drive, desire, want, unambitious, ambitious, emulation, power hunger, dream, American Dream, nationalism



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com