"Aspiration" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... assertions advanced in support of this tremendous horror to warrant the least hesitation in rejecting it. For ourselves, we must regard it as incredible, and think that God cannot permit it. Instruction, reformation, progress, are the final aims of punishment. Aspiration is the concomitant of consciousness, and the authentic voice of God. Surely, sooner or later, in the boonful eternities of being, every creature capable of intelligence, allied to the moral law, drawing life from the Infinite, must begin to travel the ascending ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Elan vital, or general impulse toward some unknown but single ideal, the terms used are no less uncertain, mythical, and vague, but the suggestion conveyed is false—false, I mean, to the organic source of life and aspiration, to the simple naturalness of nature: whereas the suggestion conveyed by Freud's speculations is true. In what sense can myths and metaphors be true or false? In the sense that, in terms drawn from moral predicaments or from literary ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... only have a tempest now. Ah, I can imagine those mountain Alps. How beautiful and grand it is. Within this wide domain romance, science, and nature, murmur an eternal anthem, which wooes for every soul that finds itself herein a new aspiration, and a realization that, after all our study and care, we ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... carrying out of unworthy aims that have been cherished in thought and the loss of vigour for real achievement, due to too easy an indulgence in blameless aspiration, are fairly obvious and have long ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... otherwise empty shell. A good Catholic, I suppose, is the same Catholic anywhere, before the grandest as well as the humblest altars; but to a visitor not formally enrolled St. Peter's speaks less of aspiration than of full and convenient assurance. The soul infinitely expands there, if one will, but all on its quite human level. It marvels at the reach of our dreams and the immensity of our resources. To be so impressed and put in our place, we say, is to be sufficiently ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... "The aspiration to be first and highest among the women of her own time, which had already thrilled the young girl's heart, was fulfilled. The ardent longing for love which, even at that period, pervaded my whole being, was satisfied when I became a loving wife, mother, and Queen, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... dare to describe the productions of my female correspondents in detail. Suffice it to say, that most of them contain a smaller proportion of useless information, and a larger proportion of sentiment, vague aspiration, and would-be-picturesque description, than those of the men who pay postage on my behalf. They are longer, and sometimes crossed; it is therefore a greater task ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... eclipse. It was a period of social unrest in which all sorts of philanthropic reforms were suggested and tried out. Measured by later events, it was a period of transition, of social awakening, of aspiration tempered by the ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... he said, we understood but the concluding phrase, and that was the bitter and blasphemous carajo! that hissed through his teeth with the energetic aspiration of ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... whispered to him. He was utterly alone. He had entered his kingdom. Viewed from afar it had seemed a vast pleasure-dome of infinite enchantment. He found Success, as it ever shall be, a veritable desert, grudging man foothold, yet luring him from one aspiration to another, only to consume his years ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... "One aspiration, and he might be washed as white as snow. 'This day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise,'" said the commander, who was known as the parson skipper, dour, but ever on the watch for the first sign ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... soul did magnify the Lord, however, and her spirit did rejoice in God her Saviour, with unlimited love and trust. He had saved them, He would hear them. He would help them, He would make them both—both good and great—great after a pause, as being perhaps not a worthy aspiration. ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... makes glad the forest-bowers, when every blade of grass is dressed in beauty, and every leaf and flower glows with the light of life, and the unsophisticated untried heart of youth breathes forth its ardent aspiration to the throne of God—then, Anthony, think of me. My spirit will hover about your path; my voice will murmur in the breeze; and the recollection of what I was, of all my faith and love, will be ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... soldier with aeolian melodies marches to his own accompaniment while the evening breeze softly thrums its anthem of divine love. We wished our lives might be pierced by the mystery of their gleaming javelins that we too might learn their lessons of strength, endurance and noble aspiration. As we stood at the base of these glorious forest-crowned mountains, gazing in rapt admiration and wonder at God's "handiwork," we were conscious of a revelation whispered through the myriad needles of the pine. How small seem the honors, customs, cares, and petty bickerings of men seen through ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... hope have you led? What immortal book have you written? What great discovery have you made? What heroic task of any kind have you performed?" There was too much talk about earnestness and too little real work done. Aspiration too frequently got as far as the alpenstock and the brandy flask, but crossed no dangerous crevasse, and scaled no arduous summit. In short, there was a kind of "Transcendentalist" dilettanteism, which betrayed itself by a phraseology as distinctive as that ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... development. The idea of no countenance is yet carried out, and this kind will take more developing for the completion of its idea, and may result in a greater beauty. I would therefore advise any young man of aspiration in the matter of beauty, to choose a plain woman for wife—IF THROUGH HER PLAINNESS SHE IS YET LOVELY IN HIS EYES; for the loveliness is herself, victorious over the plainness, and her face, so far from complete and yet serving her loveliness, has in it room for ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... hand. In silence they sat thinking, for a space. And ever higher and more warmly burned the sun; the breeze of June was sweet to them, long-used to fogs and damp and dark; the boundless flood of light across the azure thrilled them with aspiration and ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... no. She saw that she was not mistaken. Examining the society around her, men and women: everywhere was feverish excitement, dissipation, and nullity. You might rummage through their brains without finding one practical idea; in all their hearts, there was not one lofty aspiration. These people, in their daily life were like squirrels in a cage, and because they moved, they thought they were progressing. In them scepticism had killed belief; religion, family, country, were, as they phrased it, all humbug. They had only one aim, one passion—to enjoy themselves. ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... more serious strain to sketch the history of superstition and ends with an eloquent aspiration for a day ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... Franklin enjoyed seven years of what he called leisure, but they were years of study and application; years of happiness and sweet content, but years of aspiration and an earnest looking into the future. His experiments with kite and key had made his name known in all the scientific circles of Europe, and his suggestive writings on the subject of electricity had caused Goethe to lay down his pen and go to rubbing amber for ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... What's that? No equality? Can't you see, Crichton, that our divisions into classes are artificial, that if we were to return to nature, which is the aspiration of my life, all ...
— The Admirable Crichton • J. M. Barrie
... afraid of the dark and didn't dare go even as far as the house. I crept into the summer house and stayed there until morning; then I went home, suit case and all. I managed to get into the house before any one else was up, but I decided there were worse places than home. However, if the brakeman aspiration proves too strong I may be obliged to leave home again. After all, it may be ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... humble, with its compounds and derivatives, some use an, and others, a; according to their practice, in this instance, of sounding or suppressing the aspiration. Webster and Jameson sound the h, and consequently prefer a; as, "But a humbling image is not always necessary to produce that effect."—Kames, El. of Crit., i, 205. "O what a blessing is a humble mind!"—Christian Experience, p. 342. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... the Baconian aspiration into education was Comenius (d. 1670). A projector and enthusiast, Comenius desired, like Bacon, an entirely new intellectual era. With Bacon's intellectual ambition, but without Bacon's capacity, Comenius proposed to ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... Duerer's, even though seen but once? I can see her proud and noble head resting thoughtfully upon one hand, her long hair falling in disheveled tresses upon her shoulders; her folded wings emblematic of that impotent aspiration which directs her gaze towards heaven; a book, closed and useless as her wings, resting upon her knee. Nothing can be more gloomy, more penetrating, than the expression of this figure. From the peculiar folds ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... a reality, the chief reality of life, the focus of her aspiration, the morning and ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... will increase the pupil's interest in these poems. In the lessons on art, there are studies of pictures that suggest feelings and thoughts characterized by universality, permanency, and nobility—pictures that stir men to nobler thought and higher aspiration. Often, such pictures are the painter's method of expressing in colours, thoughts that the poet has expressed in words. Lessons such as Dandelions, Bob White, and The Sandpiper require a preliminary acquaintance with certain facts of nature, and ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... reading the last sketch containing the account, given by Mr. Slick of the House of Commons, his opinion of his own abilities as a speaker, and his aspiration after a seat in that body, for the purpose of "skinning," as he calls it, impertinent or stupid members, could not avoid coming to the conclusion that he was a conceited block-head; and that if his countrymen talked in that ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... flanks denote lawyers toiling late at their briefs, or mining stock promoters planning a new cast of the net? Must we be forever told that this is not a spire in praise of God but a monument in praise of Mammon? Aspiration is in its lines, beauty in its sky-borne shaft of blue and gold, ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... the same which Austria-Hungary was being blamed for with regard to Serbia, i.e., an infraction of sovereignty. Austria-Hungary having promised to consider the Russian interests by disclaiming any territorial aspiration—a great concession on the part of a state engaged in war—should therefore be permitted to attend to its affairs with Serbia alone. There would be time at the peace conference to return to the matter of forbearance ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... ambition and aspiration to be and to do something really worth doing was still uppermost with him. In a letter to Mary Agnew he says: "Sometimes I feel as if there were a Providence watching over me, and as if an unseen and uncontrollable hand guided my ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... sneeringly pointing out the plague spots of humanity, and showing pleasantly how even the good are tainted with evil. Rather does Dickens delight in finding some touch of goodness, some lingering memory of better things, some hopeful aspiration, some trace of unselfish devotion in characters where all seems soddened and lost. In brief, the laughter is the laughter of one who sees the foibles, and even the vices of his fellow-men, and yet looks on them ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... and, I am sure, with the hearty assent of this great and representative company, I respond to the final aspiration of your toast: "May this great family in all its branches ever work together for the world's welfare." Certainly its division and alienation would be the world's misfortune. That England and America have had sharp and angry ...
— Model Speeches for Practise • Grenville Kleiser
... prison-worn in the service of a thankless country, his hopes lived again in Carl, the swordsman of Jena. Then came the pitiful Revolution, the sundering of all ties, the elder man left to drag out his few weary days before a shattered altar. In Carl a new aspiration had sprung up, a new patriotism stirred. His, too, had been the sacrifice. Happy in death, for he had helped perpetuate that great Union which should be for all time the refuge ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... one calm summer night; And thus in that fair form still heavenward turning Eternal aspiration, endless yearning, Stood now the ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... education at Westminster School, and when Southey was expelled by an unwise headmaster for a boyish jest, his uncle's faith in him held firm, and he was sent on to Balliol College, Oxford. Those were days of wild hope among the young. They felt all that was generous in the aspiration of idealists who saw the golden cities of the future in storm-clouds of revolution. Robert Southey at Oxford dreamed good dreams as a poetical Republican. He joined himself with other young students—Coleridge among them—who planned an experiment ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... and held them up in a quaint little gesture of aspiration. "No, because it isn't in a book. I feel lost—so out in space. I only ask for a place in the universe—to ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... leaves us with a sense of dissatisfaction and unreality. The reader, who through the whole three volumes till close upon the end has been travelling in an atmosphere of ordinary morality and every-day aspiration, knows not how in the last chapter to breathe the air ...
— An Estimate of the Value and Influence of Works of Fiction in Modern Times • Thomas Hill Green
... European fleets could absolutely control the issue and no question of Continental partition need arise. In Crete the Sultan could, Sir Charles believed, have been compelled to accept a nominal sovereignty, such as he retained over Cyprus; and the aspiration towards Hellenic unity, the need for Hellenic expansion, might thus ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... (counting back from the end). The mood of dreamy contemplation with which the Slow Movement begins cannot be translated into words; why attempt it? We have the music which, coming from the divinely gifted imagination of the composer, reveals in its own language a message of pathetic longing and ideal aspiration. The movement is very concise but in complete Sonata-form, and with an orchestration felicitous in the treatment of the horns and the wood-wind instruments. The Minuet, noteworthy for the three-measure ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... veins of nature swell, Eternal recompense to human toil. And when the sunset's final shades depart The aspiration to completed birth Is sweet and silent; as the soft tears start, We know how wanton and how little worth Are all the passions of our bleeding heart That vex the awful patience ...
— ANTHOLOGY OF MASSACHUSETTS POETS • WILLIAM STANLEY BRAITHWAITE
... same name (Don Agustin de Iturbide), is probably the best, as it is the largest in the city; but this is faint praise. Hotel-keeping is one of the arts which, at its best, has not yet been introduced into this country. Iturbide's aspiration led him to assume the imperial crown, in consequence of which he fell. After reigning for a twelvemonth, he was banished from Mexico on parole never to return. This parole he broke, landing from ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... page. Its clear resinous flame enabled him to read a short psalm. Then they sang a most wailful tune, and John prayed. If I were to give the prayer as he uttered it, I might make my reader laugh, therefore I abstain, assuring him only that, although full of long words—amongst the rest, aspiration and ravishment—the prayer of the cheerful, joke-loving cottar contained evidence of a degree of religious development rare, I ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... to a rapid succession of images, and to a constant projection of the observer's own personality into phenomena. This peculiar characteristic of our race is never wholly overcome, and to it is added a proud self-consciousness, an energy of thought and action, a constant aspiration after grand achievements, and a haughty ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... marching down to posterity with divine honours. There is nothing so monstrous but we can believe it of ourselves. About ourselves, about our aspirations and delinquencies, we have dwelt by choice in a delicious vagueness from our boyhood up. No one will have forgotten Tom Sawyer's aspiration: "Ah, if he could only die temporarily!" Or, perhaps, better still, the inward resolution of the two pirates, that "so long as they remained in that business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the crime of stealing." Here we recognise the thoughts of our boyhood; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... positivism, you will say; certainly it is positivism. But how changed! Far from considering as positive only that which can be an object of sensation or calculation, we begin by greeting the great spiritual realities with this title. The deep and living aspiration of our day is in everything to seek the soul, the soul which specifies and quickens, seek it by an effort towards the revealing sympathy which is genuine intelligence, seek it in the concrete, without ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... on us; suppose, instead of withdrawing your garment, you went over and talked to her, got her to tell you what she really felt and thought, you'd find things that would astonish you. At bottom, mankind is splendid. And they're raised, sir, by the aspiration that's in all of them. Haven't you ever noticed that public sentiment is always ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Professor Valeyon was not one of the exceptions, and was haunted by the idea that, were some certain event to come to pass, life would be more pleasant and gracious to him than it was now. Doubtless, however, an ideal aspiration of some kind, even though it be never realized, is itself a kind of happiness, without which we might feel at a loss. If the professor's solitary wish had been fulfilled, and there had been no longer cause for him to say, "If I had but this, I should be satisfied," might it not still happen ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... Heaven. And on each terrace the white balustrade climbs in aspiring marble, etched in cloud. And Heaven is very near. For this is worship native as the air, wide as the wind, and poignant as the rain, Pure aspiration, ...
— Profiles from China • Eunice Tietjens
... being myself what Professor Wilson calls a hedonist, or philosophical voluptuary, and murmuring, with good reason, if a rose leaf lies doubled below me, naturally I murmur at a letter that puts one to the expense of an aspiration, forcing into the lungs an extra charge of raw air on frosty mornings. But truth is truth, in spite of frosty air. And yet, upon further reading, doubts gathered upon my mind. The H. that I mean is an Englishman; now it happens that here and there a word, or some peculiarity in using a word, ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... through it; penetrating into its laws, its very language, its mere habits of decorum, in a thousand half-conscious ways; yet still felt to be, in part, an unfulfilled ideal; and, as such, awakening hope, and an aim, identical with the one only consistent aspiration of mankind! In the apprehension of that, just then, Marius seemed to have joined company once more with his own old self; to have overtaken on the road the pilgrim who had come to Rome, with absolute sincerity, on the search for perfection. It defined not so ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... singular harmony with the expression of his face, began to read a hymn. His voice had a remarkable cadence, rising and falling with yearning tenderness and sober pathos. It seemed to impart every feeling, every thought, every aspiration of the hymn. It was full of reverence, ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... general acceptation. The idea, in fact, has doubtless flitted across the minds of most of us, though few, let us hope, would help to realize it; for, notwithstanding its agreeable form, it is not a benevolent aspiration. The reception of the individual in question into the realms of bliss has less interest with us than his removal from the earth's surface, and, consequently, from our path upon it. We may be very civil toward this person, and we often are; but we seldom desire him for a son-in-law. John Trevethick ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... admirable qualities of mind, and loved him with a warm affection, which Alcibiades as warmly returned. The philosopher gained the greatest influence over his youthful friend, taught him to despise affectation and revere virtue, and did much to develop in him noble qualities of thought and aspiration. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... to be free, not under the compulsion of any need for unification, or tortured by unsatisfied desire. Desire and aspiration should find their object without all this torture, as now, in a world of plenty of water, simple thirst is inconsiderable, satisfied almost unconsciously. And he wanted to be with Ursula as free as with himself, single ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... with poor butterfly Ruby. When she came to the end of one life it must not be to face the next with the shrinking terror of something wholly different—something for which accustomed thought and ideal and aspiration had unfitted her. The little things of life, sweet and excellent in their place, must not be the things lived for; the highest must be sought and followed; the life of heaven must be begun here ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... perfectly convinced that Laurie overworked himself—Laurie, overworked!—and that that was just all that was the matter with him. Auntie's what's called a sensible woman, you know, and I must say it's rather restful. It's what I want to be; but it's a far-off aspiration, I'm afraid, though I'm nearer it ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... is one hymn of lofty cheer. There is neither weak conceit nor weak contrition, but gratitude for existence, and a sublime aim. "My actual life," he says, "is a fact in view of which I have no occasion to congratulate myself; but for my faith and aspiration I have respect. It is from these that I speak. Every man's position is, in fact, too simple to be described.... I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that.... I know that I am. I know that another ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... impressive views, and even foreshadowed those intimate convictions which he never expressed, but which he desired to record in such a manner that those that can read between the lines might find them there; and certainly there we find them. His aspiration has been to present to the world a picture of the physical world from which he would exclude everything that relates to the turmoil of human society, and to the ambitions of individual men. A life so full, so rich, is worth explaining in every respect, and it is really ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... from the actual, living world, is to be wrought an imagined consistent world of Art,—not fantastic, or objectless, but having a purpose, and that purpose, in all its figments, a distinct relation to man's nature, and all that pertains to it, from the humblest emotion to the highest aspiration; the circle that bounds it being that only which bounds his spirit,—even the confines of that higher world, where ideal glimpses of angelic forms are sometimes permitted to his sublimated vision. Art may, in truth, ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... "The aspiration is yours, Goddess. They are only fit symbols of a super- materialism. Their strength is ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... but when the flesh hath fallen from us, then shall the spirit shine forth clad in the brightness of eternal good, and for its common air shall breathe so rare an ether of most noble thoughts that the highest aspiration of our manhood, or the purest incense of a maiden's prayer, would prove too earthly gross ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... for emancipation. Women in all lands and all ages have instinctively desired family limitation. Usually this desire has been laid to economic pressure. Frequently the pressure has existed, but the driving force behind woman's aspiration toward freedom has lain deeper. It has asserted itself among the rich and among the poor, among the intelligent and the unintelligent. It has been manifested in such horrors as ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... of this huge unrest, and an abiding, unshaken, immovable principle of good guiding this vanishing world of fluctuating atoms, in whose eternal permanence of nature we largely participate, and our tendency toward and aspiration for whose perfect stability is one of the very causes of the progress, and therefore mutability, of our existence. Perhaps the most painful of all the forms in which change confronts us is in the increased infirmities and diminished graces which after long absence we observe in those we love; ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... trade and commerce; must develop social, political and religious institutions. Each people will, however, do some one thing better than the rest of its tasks, better than it is done by other peoples. Each great race has some commanding inspiration; some ideal which masters every other aspiration and ambition, energizes its efforts and shapes its destiny. It creates a specialty among the nations. The real legacy of each great race lies in the works wrought in the line of its highest aptitudes. Thus Rome developed a genius for civil organization. ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... Carlos, "you talk like a born courtier; yet at the same time," he added, in a solemn tone, "what you have just said is the high hope and aspiration of my life." ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... wrote of civilization as an experiment: an aspiration, a creative urge, a concept, a purpose, a unity of thought and act, a conscious sequence of related actions, ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... time to revolve swiftly. John understood that all was finished, and that to stop in the cart would only mean certain death, because they would be held under water by the canvas tent. So with a devout aspiration for assistance he seized Jess round the waist with one arm and sprang off into the river. As he leapt the cart filled ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... people in harsher and more violent terms was, as far as we know, never fulfilled. No inference can be drawn from this circumstance as to the probability of the words attributed to him having been actually uttered. They express the aspiration of the first martyr of philosophy, that he would leave behind him many followers, accompanied by the not unnatural feeling that they would be fiercer and more inconsiderate in their words when emancipated ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... "the Daughter of the Voice"[12] that spake. Since the Captivity 'tis the only mode by which the saints are summoned. Oft have I heard of it, but never in these sad degenerate days has its soft aspiration fallen upon us. These are strange times and tidings. The building of the temple is at hand. Son of David, my heart is full. Let us ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... the altar, in the restful gloom of Calvary, she could look up with untired eyes to the calm glow of the celestial life, unchanging, orderly, beautiful with its satisfied aspiration, and rich in perfect love and holy companionship. Such a longing came over her to walk into this perfect peace that moment! Mona well knew this mood, and Louis in triumph signalled his sister to look. Her eyes, turned to the rocky shore of Valcour, saw far beyond. On her perfect face lay a shadow, ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... with great favor the socialistic doctrines then coming into vogue. The American social system he pronounced corrupt and rotten, and deserving to be uprooted and subverted. And this was the rustic boy, who, a few months before, had left his home so full of hope, and generous feeling, and high aspiration. ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... a discrete degree, while the community between different bodies on the same plane he called a continuous degree. Thus there is community of sensation between bodies of the same nature, community of feeling, community of thought, and community of desire or aspiration, each on its own plane of existence. But desire is translated into thought, thought into feeling, and feeling into action. The spirit, soul (rational and animal in its higher and lower aspects), and the body appear to have been the principles of the human constitution according to ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... call him to prayers, to his meals, to his matins, and to his rest. Many a time, when he finds me alone, he gives me some spiritual reading, or says aloud some prayers. Every time I strike, he breathes an aspiration of love and thanksgiving. In short, we have found our glorious mission in our new birth. We are both apostles: I represent Time; he ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... moral and physical energies of the nation." By Wilhelm von Humboldt the modern Prussian school system was created; while by Fichte, Arndt, and a galaxy of other writers there was imparted a stimulus by which the patriotism and aspiration of the Prussian people were raised to ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... confronted these two strong men. In point of intellect and aspiration they were far beyond the people they governed—so far, indeed, that they were almost isolated. There was a multitude of slaves and consequently there was a feeling everywhere that useful work was degrading. The tendency of the slave-owner is always toward profligacy and conspicuous waste. To do ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... Column of Progress sympathetically express its exalted idealism. They are by Isadore Konti, in richly wrought high relief. The play of color values, the planes of light and shade, are handled with mastery. These four panels indicate that the thought, the dream, the aspiration, the dutiful devotion underlying all the labors of the common day are the source of their progress. One panel shows the higher toils of the mind, as in the arts and statesmanship. In the center of this stands the ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry
... method turns aside from hypotheses not to be tested by any known logical canon familiar to science, whether the hypothesis claims support from intuition, aspiration or general plausibility. And, again, this method turns aside from ideal standards which avow themselves to be lawless, which profess to transcend the field of law. We say, life and conduct shall stand for us wholly on a basis of law, and must rest entirely in that region of science (not physical, ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... meantime make it the aspiration and business of your life to know that ALL things are NOW working for good to you and your mate, and all ...
— Happiness and Marriage • Elizabeth (Jones) Towne
... criticise nothing. To some extent, their attitude to the universe is that of children: and because this is so, they participate to that extent in the Heaven of Reality. According to their measure, they have fulfilled Keats' aspiration, they do live a life in which the emphasis lies on sensation rather than on thought: for the state which he then struggled to describe was that ideal state of pure receptivity, of perfect correspondence ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... noticed that the crowd of savages was vanishing without any perceptible movement of retreat, as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again as the breath is drawn in a long aspiration. ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... most mighty of the earth, made up of very mediocre, average people, not the great leaders of the civilisation of the day; but in them all, else would they not be members of the Theosophical Society, is the dawning aspiration after a nobler condition, and some willingness to sacrifice themselves in order that the coming of that condition may be quickened upon earth. That is the justification of our Society now. We are like the nutrient material that surrounds ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... familiar name, which the nation is adopting as one of its household words) in habits of daily intercourse. Our modes of life had since been as different as could well be imagined; our culture and labor were entirely unlike; there was hardly a single object or aspiration in common between us. Still we had occasionally met, and always on the old ground of friendly confidence. There were sympathies that had not been suffered to die out. Had we lived more constantly together, it is not impossible that the relation might have been changed by the various accidents and ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... indirectly to admit it as regards thought. Again, as regards beauty, the man who fails to see its incomparable excellence in this respect merely shows his own deficiency in the appreciation of all that is noblest in man. True or not true, the entire Story of the Cross, from its commencement in prophetic aspiration to its culmination in the Gospel, is by far the most magnificent [presentation] in literature. And surely the fact of its having all been lived does not detract from its poetic value. Nor does the fact of its being capable of appropriation by the individual Christian of to-day as still a vital ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes
... for the almost bovine self-satisfaction of a nation without eyes. Literature and painting, art in all its far-flung branches, even science, were suffering in these days from a general and paralysing inertia. Life which demanded no sacrifice of anybody was destructive of everything in the nature of aspiration. Sport seemed to be the only incentive to sobriety, the desire to live long in this fat land the only brake upon an era of self-indulgence. He looked eastwards to where his own millions were toiling, with his day-by-day maxims in their ears, and it seemed ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... historian is bound to confess that his anxiety for Sibyll did not entirely distract his attention from interest or ambition. To become the head of his class, to rise to the first honours of his beloved city of London, had become to Nicholas Alwyn a hope and aspiration which made as much a part of his being as glory to a warrior, power to a king, a Eureka to a scholar; and, though more mechanically than with any sordid calculation or self-seeking, Nicholas Alwyn repaired to his ware in the Chepe. The streets, when he landed, already ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the lamp in an instant." She proceeded to do so, conscious of a fleeting wish that the visitor would note the brightness of the chimney and clearness of the flame, and read a lesson to Hannah. She breathed a sigh as she realized the hopelessness of the aspiration. ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... vanished. The frugal supper was that night a jovial meal; the very look of a cheerful blaze beneath a walled roof was reviving to the wanderers; the jest passed round, the wine-cup sparkled to the health of the countess, and many a fervent aspiration echoed round for the speedy restoration of her strength; for truly she was the beloved, the venerated of all, alike from her ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... and might even claim a place beside some of those of her brother. They are equally elevated in tone, and pervaded by the same subtle, penetrating, radiant mysticism, the same rapture of self-sacrificing aspiration, though lacking the glow of inward fire and exquisite charm of style which marked the author of the ‘Pensées.’ Noble-minded and full of genius, she was yet without his depth and power of feeling, or his skill and finish as an author. In 1646 she came, along with her brother, and greatly ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new pressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the vicissitudes in other people's lives, though it was never her aspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly—a point to be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... break—until one evening. I was sitting alone at an open window in the dark, and I was tired of doing nothing and very sorry for myself, and I wanted an object in life more than ever, and then a great longing seized me. I thought it an aspiration. I wanted to go out there and then. I wanted to be free to go and come as I would. I felt a galling sense of restraint all at once, and I determined to break the law that imposed it; and that alone was a satisfaction—the finding of one law that ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Venetia, it is a mistake to imagine that they have renounced all aspirations in that direction. Only fanatics of the worst kind would be disposed to attempt, in the present situation, to win those provinces by force, but that has nothing to do with the matter. The aspiration exists and cannot help existing. It has always been shared by patriots of all denominations. An English statesman who called on Pius IX. was somewhat surprised by the Pope saying that Italian unity was very well, but it was a pity it did ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... ever. We had a dispute about the word "heir," which I contended was pronounced like "air;" he said that might be in common parlance; or that we might so use it, speaking of the "Heir-at-Law," a comedy; but that in the Law Courts it was necessary to give it a full aspiration, and to say Hayer; he thought it might even vitiate a cause, if a Counsel pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he "would consult Serjeant Wilde;" who gave it against him. Sometimes he falleth into ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... she wishes it. No, not as she wishes it; she has not time to wish. The swift glory spreads out, sweeping and kindling, and multiplies its splendours faster than Thought can effect his combinations, faster than Aspiration can utter her longings. Shirley says nothing while the trance is upon her—she is quite mute; but if Mrs. Pryor speaks to her now, she goes out quietly, and continues her walk upstairs ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... however wild, gave a healthy and natural expression to the greatness of a great moment. He vowed, for example, to chain two mountains together, perhaps a symbol of some great relief, or love, or aspiration. Short as the moment of his resolve might be, it was, like all great moments, a moment of immortality, and the desire to say of it exegi monumentum oere perennius was the only sentiment that would satisfy his mind. The modern ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... being whom none looks up to nor fears, is ground to powder beneath the superimposed mass; no appeal from the authority, no escape from the caprice or cruelty of his feudal lord. Could any scales weigh, could any words measure the suffering which must have been endured? Is it strange that, with every aspiration thwarted, hope stifled, Europe sank into the long sleep of ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... Salamancan monk Luis DE LEON (1527-1591). The deep religious feeling which is one strong trait of Spanish character has its representatives in Castilian literature from Berceo down, but Leon was the first to give it fine artistic expression. The mystic sensation of oneness with the divine, of aspiration to heavenly joys, breathes in all his writings. He was also a devoted student of the classics, and his poems (for which he cared nothing and which were not published till 1631) show Latin rather than Italian influence. There is nothing in literature more pure, more serene, more direct ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... numbers, and after emancipation, in utter ignorance of book lore or a pure gospel. To this people the American Missionary Association, through the Avery Institute and its consecrated workers, has brought the light of knowledge and a pure gospel, and awakened aspiration and hope of a better life. The beneficial effects of this work upon such a people, and indirectly upon the city and state, are incalculable. Intelligent Christianity and Christian education has ever been ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 54, No. 2, April, 1900 • Various
... individuality in persons and of special character in actions, we are at liberty to resume the general thesis,—that orbital rest of movement furnishes the type of perfect excellence, and suggests accordingly the proper targe of aspiration and culture. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... all cost, keep pure the Anglo-Saxon blood, to which this America belongs, of right; let us as a nation, Americans all, work and dwell together in true comradeship, and let our nation walk in just and right ways, for our country. Then, indeed, our heart's aspiration shall be fulfilled. ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... national idea across the St. George's Channel. Owing to her fortunate geographical situation, she acquired national unity many centuries ago and has always been able to defend it successfully against the danger of external aggression. The national idea, therefore, has long ceased to be an aspiration, and consequently a revolutionary force, among us; it has been realised in actual fact, we have grown as accustomed to it and as unconscious of it as of the air we breathe. Thus Englishmen, as their attitude towards Ireland has shown, find it difficult to understand ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... aspiration unreasonable let me commend a renowned and life-giving precedent of English history. As early as the days of Queen Elizabeth, a courtier boasted that the air of England was too pure for a slave to breathe, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... has found in Italy the scientific and realistic development which has marked it in all other countries. The romantic school came distinctly to a close there with the close of the long period of patriotic aspiration and endeavor; but I do not know the more recent work, except in some of the novels, and I have not attempted to speak of the newer poetry represented by Carducci. The translations here are my own; I have tried to make them faithful; I am ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... between Le Maschere and Florence in particular; these spots of ground, gardens, orchards and villas forming a striking and pleasing contrast with the wild and dreary scenery of the Appennines. Another thing that indicates one's arrival among the Tuscans is their aspiration of the letter c before a, o and u, which is at first extremely puzzling to a foreigner accustomed only to the Roman pronunciation. For instance, instead of camera, cotto, curvo, they pronounce these words hamera, hotto, and hurvo with an exceeding strong aspiration ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... garden. Day followed day, without anything happening to stay or check the gentle tide of their mutual affections; neither was jealous of her sister, for their desires were set upon others. Frank was but an ideal, a repose, a pious aspiration which joined their hands and hearts leaving them free of any stress of passion, Maggie claiming him a little more than Sally, and Sally yielding her claim to her without knowing that ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... a Saint Dominic, and the exquisite, radiant visions which Saint Cecelia saw when heavenly music was vouchsafed her. Or, if one has time to fancy further, the nave is the epic of its great religion; the choir, a song which is the expression of most delicate aspiration, most tender worship. On Sunday, when to this beauty of the godly habitation is added all the beauty of worship, the music of the oldest organs in France, slow-moving priests in gorgeous vestments, sweet smelling incense, chants, and prayers of a most majestic ritual, one is tempted to read into ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... when he dies to the astral plane he leaves his Kamarupa behind him. If he has purged himself from all earthly desires during life, and directed all his energies into the channels of unselfish spiritual aspiration, his higher Ego will be able to draw back into itself the whole of the lower Manas which it put forth into incarnation; in that case the Kamarupa left behind on the astral plane will be a mere corpse ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... healing. The practical result of this doctrine, in art, is a continual contemplation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states of purification from them; thus we have an architecture conceived in a mingled sentiment of melancholy and aspiration, partly severe, partly luxuriant, which will bend itself to every one of our needs, and every one of our fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we are strong or weak ourselves. It is, of all architecture, the basest, ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... on the other hand, regardless of the impressions of typical beauty, accept from each creature, great or small, the more important lessons taught by its position in creation as sufferer or chastiser, as lowly or having dominion, as of foul habit or lofty aspiration, and from the several perfections which all illustrate or possess, courage, perseverance, industry, or intelligence, or, higher yet, of love and patience, and fidelity and rejoicing, and never wearied ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... deliberately its sanction; in which our feelings would safely and with satisfaction rest on the firmness of our faith; from joining in which a truly pious mind would have no ground for inward misgiving, nor for the aspiration, Would ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... this consummation is the grand purpose of the Platonic philosophy. Its ultimate object is "the purification of the soul," and its pervading spirit is the aspiration after perfection. The whole system of Plato has therefore an eminently ethical character. It is a speculative philosophy directed to a ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... nationalities. Apart from those who, like Buddha and Mahomet, have been raised to the height of demi-gods by worshipping millions, there are names which leap inevitably to the mind—such names as Savonarola, Luther, Calvin, Rousseau—which stand for types and exemplars of spiritual aspiration. To this high priesthood of the quick among the dead, who can doubt that time will admit Leo Tolstoy—a genius whose greatness has been obscured from us rather than enhanced by his duality; a realist who strove ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... with all their imperfections, express an onward tendency. They speak of aspiration of soul, of energy of mind, seeking clearness and freedom. Of a like promise are the tracts lately published by Goodwyn Barmby (the European Pariah, as he calls himself) and his wife Catharine. Whatever we may think of their measures, we see in them wedlock; the two minds are wed ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... selfishness to love—is not this a rising from the dead? The man whose ambition declares that his way in the world would be to subject everything to his desires, to bring every human care, affection, power, and aspiration to his feet—such a world it would be, and such a king it would have, if individual ambition might work its will! if a man's opinion of himself could be made out in the world, degrading, compelling, oppressing, doing everything for his own glory!—and such a glory!—but a pang of light strikes ...
— The Seaboard Parish Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... of grief. It is all to pass—these happy days at Marshfield; the wife he so fondly cared for; the children he so deeply cherished. Sycophants are to fill, in a measure, the place of friends, the money which now flows in so freely is to entangle and ensnare him; the lofty aspiration which now inspires him is to degenerate into a presidential ambition which will eat into his soul. But to-day let us, as long as we may, see him as he is in the height of his powers. Let us walk with him under the trees which he planted. Those ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... had some luck there and began to advertise the fact with a small steam-yacht and a cruise. We were going as hard as ever to keep up, but on higher levels of aspiration. The girls were engaged in a strenuous contest for the prize of Harry's favor, with that handsome young divorcee well in ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller |
