By steps we may ascend to God. [ Milton ]
I have immortal longings in me. [ William Shakespeare ]
O that I had wings like a dove. [ Bible ]
Father! forgive the heart that clings
Thus trembling to the things of time,
And bid my soul, on angel's wings
Ascend into a purer clime. [ Jane Roscoe ]
The mere aspiration is partial realization. [ Anna Cora Mowatt ]
Faith is love taking the form of aspiration. [ Channing ]
Repentance is but another name for aspiration. [ Beecher ]
Ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration. [ George Macdonald ]
Too low they build who build beneath the stars. [ Young ]
No man can ever rise above that at which he aims. [ Rev. A. A. Hodge ]
The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high. [ Thoreau ]
The movement of the species is upward, irresistibly upward. [ Bancroft ]
There is not a single heart but has its moments of longing. [ Beecher ]
A man - be the heavens ever praised! - is sufficient for himself. [ Carlyle ]
Oh for a muse of fire that would ascend the highest heaven of invention! [ William Shakespeare ]
It is but a base, ignoble mind that mounts no higher than a bird can soar. [ William Shakespeare ]
We cannot of ourselves estimate the degree of our success in what we strive for. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]
We write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint those qualities which we do not possess. [ Emerson ]
There is no sorrow I have thought more about than that, - to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail. [ George Eliot ]
Man ought always to have something which he prefers to life; otherwise life itself will appear to him tiresome and void. [ Seume ]
Aspirations after the holy, - the only aspiration in which the human soul can be assured that it will never meet with disappointment. [ Maria McIntosh ]
The heart is a small thing, but desireth great matters. It is not sufficient for a kite's dinner, yet the whole world is not sufficient for it. [ Quarles ]
What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realizes itself. [ Mrs. Jameson ]
It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. [ George Eliot ]
The poetry of the ancients was that of possession, ours is that of aspiration; the former stands fast on the soil of the present, the latter hovers between memory and anticipation. [ Schlegel ]
Aspiration, worthy ambition, desires for higher good for good ends, - all these indicate a soul that recognizes the beckoning hand of the good Father, who would call us homeward toward Himself. [ J. G. Holland ]
Almost every great soul that has led forward, or lifted up the race, has been furnished for each nobler deed, and inspired with each patriotic and holy aspiration, by the retiring fortitude of some Spartan - some Christian mother. [ C. J. White ]
There must be something beyond man in this world. Even on attaining to his highest possibilities, he is like a bird beating against his cage. There is something beyond, O deathless soul, like a sea-shell, moaning for the bosom of the ocean to which you belong! [ Chapin ]
Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly towards an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them, - that it was a vain endeavor? [ Thoreau ]