There is no striving against one's fate. [ Friedrich Schiller ]

The lily and the rose in her fair face striving for precedence. [ N. P. Willis ]

We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us. [ Ovid ]

Thou hast betrayed thy secret as a bird betrays her nest, by striving to conceal it. [ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ]

Finally, we must think big and dream even bigger. In America, we understand that a nation is only living as long as it is striving. [ President Donald J. Trump, Presidential Inaugeration Speech, Jan 20, 2017 ]

Besides the pleasure derived from acquired knowledge, there lurks in the mind of man, and tinged with a shade of sadness, an unsatisfactory longing for something beyond the present, a striving towards regions yet unknown and unopened. [ Wilhelm von Humboldt ]

To a man who is uncorrupt and properly constituted, woman always remains something of a mystery and a romance. He never interprets her quite literally. She, on her part, is always striving to remain a poem, and is never weary of bringing out new editions of herself in novel bindings. [ James Parton ]