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Striving   /strˈaɪvɪŋ/   Listen
Striving

noun
1.
An effortful attempt to attain a goal.  Synonyms: nisus, pains, strain.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Striving" Quotes from Famous Books



... struggle of the strong for power.—"It is the way of Tao to do difficult things when they are easy; to benefit and not to injure; to do and not to strive." Come out, says Laotse, from all this moil and topsey- turveydom; stop all this striving and botheration; give things a chance to right themselves. There is nothing flashy or to make a show about in Tao; it vies with no one. Let go; let be; find rest of the mind and senses; let us have no more of these fooleries, war, capital punishment, ambition; ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... the table and ran out after his wife. Lord Saul stopped for a moment where he was. Molly, the maid, saw him bend over and put both hands to his face. If it were the last words she had to speak, she said afterwards, he was striving to keep back a fit of laughing. Then he went out softly, ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James

... all his companions at school, and stood at the head of the military academy; for he was striving to win a name and fortune for his father. The good Marmont, from time to time, endeavored to obtain tidings of the soldier; but the latter had purposely changed his usual route, and, satisfied that his son was in good hands, ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... be understood that when the Leprecauns of Gort na Cloca Mora acted in the manner about to be recorded, they were not prompted by any lewd passion for revenge, but were merely striving to reconstruct a rhythm which was their very existence, and which must have been of direct importance to the Earth. Revenge is the vilest passion known to life. It has made Law possible, and by doing so it gave to Intellect the first grip at that universal dominion which is its ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... while Hiram, with quick breath, and heightened color, and whirling brain, was striving hard and failing fast to keep his wits about him. What was most annoying of all, the young lady, though so accommodating and familiar as a partner to practise with under the master's eye, when the exercise was over appeared perfectly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... an age, before I stood in the niche of rock at the head of the slippery watercourse, and gazed into the quiet glen, where my foolish heart was dwelling. Notwithstanding doubts of right, notwithstanding sense of duty, and despite all manly striving, and the great love of my home, there my heart was ever dwelling, knowing what a fool it was, and ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... sooth it was,' wrote Heylin, 'that the people in many great trading towns which were near the sea, having long been discharged of the bond of ceremonies, no sooner came to hear the least noise of a conformity, but they began to spurn against it; and when they found that all their striving was in vain, that they had lost the comfort of their lecturers and that their ministers began to shrink at the very name of a visitation, it was no hard matter for those ministers and lecturers to persuade them to remove their dwellings and transport their trades.' 'The sun of heaven,' say ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... forth. In it is poetry that ought to assure Mr. Jones' future if circumstances permit him to cultivate an art for which nature has so obviously endowed him. "The Sylvan Cabin" in spirit may be said to characterize the author's book; that upward striving toward the ideal, which taking a personal expression in his own experience, in his own hopes, has also a larger significance in voicing the aspirations of those for whom, as is shown in many other poems, he becomes a ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones

... either waste it or add to it, whichever suits their selfishness best. Such lives are absolutely useless,—they repeat the same old round, leading nowhere. Occasionally, in the course of centuries a real Brain is born—and at once, all who are merely Bodies leap up against it, like famished wolves, striving to tear it to pieces and devour it—if it survives the attack its worth is only recognised long after its owner has perished. The whole scheme is manifestly unintelligent and ludicrous, but it is not intended to be so—of that I am sure. ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... way for fair Kriemhild. Valiant knights in stately array escorted her to the minster, where she was parted from Siegfried. She went thither followed by her maidens; and so rich was her apparel that the other women, for all their striving, were as naught beside her, for to glad the eyes of heroes she ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown

... it would make her feel for others in a way she had never felt before. Also, because it taught her that such a heart-break can be borne and lived through when help is sought where only real help can be found; and where, when reason fails, and those who, striving to do right irrespective of the consequences, cry out against their torments and wonder why they should be made so to suffer, childlike faith comes to their rescue. For, let us have all the philosophy at our fingers' ends, what are we but children? We know not what a ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... to recuperate. Therefore, what would hold good in the case of such an extraordinary man as Mr. Edison cannot be depended upon in the case of the average man or woman, and certainly will not meet the needs of those who are debilitated and striving to ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden

... light and all. It was there for a purpose. In front of it was a great barbed-wire barricade. Strategically it commanded the main road over which the German Army must pass to reach the point it has been striving for. Only seven miles away along that road it was straining even then for the onward spring movement. Any day now, and that luxurious trench may be the scene ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... grip and spoke no word. He writhed and turned, striving to free himself. I had knocked his revolver from his hand, and he tried in vain to reach it. My grip was strong with the strength of madness, and the white face before me grew whiter except where a smear of blood closed the left eye and trickled down over the cheek beneath. A trace of ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... hope that she became truly pious six years ago, in 1846, as her life evinces that she is striving to live according to the precepts of the gospel. She has never dared to go home again, although it has been a great trial for her to stay away, because she knew that she should be obliged to remain there, and ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup

... committed so much mischief, that no one would undertake the charge of him; and therefore, like a bad boy, he was sent off to sea again in disgrace. As was natural, Sancho and Queerface became very intimate, though not at the same time perfectly friendly. Each, it appeared, was striving for the mastery. Queerface, monkey though he was, gained the day; and one of his great amusements was to mount Sancho's back, and to make him run round and round the deck with him, whipping him on and chattering away all the time most vociferously, to the great amusement of the seamen, if ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... Him back to earth again by showing Him the noblest of His gifts, the work most like His own. Surely He cannot hate or abandon those who thus cherish His memory, and thus implore His regard. Perishable and imperfect is everything human: but in these very qualities I find the best reason for striving to attain what is least so. Would not any father be gratified by seeing his child attempt to delineate his features? And would not the gratification be rather increased than diminished by his incapacity? How long shall the narrow mind of man stand between goodness ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... striving to remember where he had seen the unknown woman's face. He had seen it—of that he was certain. He had the sense that the circumstances under which he had seen it had been tragic. If he could only make Maisie reveal ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... room crestfallen, disappointed, and abashed; but on reaching the outside of the door he found Norton awaiting him. This worthy gentleman, after beckoning to him to follow, having been striving, with his whole soul centred in the key-hole, to hear the purport of their conference, now proceeded to his own room, accompanied by M'Bride, where we shall leave them without interruption to their conversation and enjoyment, and return once more to ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... hill Its wandering way pursueth, The mighty river far below Adown the valley floweth, The winds roam ever in the sky, The clouds are onward driving, And towards some quiet shore—at home The raging sea is striving. ...
— Welsh Lyrics of the Nineteenth Century • Edmund O. Jones

... immersed and sunk into the flesh, and into the earth by sin, till grace come down and renew them, and extract them out of that dunghill, and purify them. And then they are, as in a state of violence, always striving to mount upwards, till they be embodied, or rather inspirited, so to speak, in that original Spirit, till they be wholly united to their own element, the divine nature. You know Christ's prayer, John xvii. "That they may be one, as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... there was a rush and the clash of steel, and, with his heart throbbing, the lad signed to his nearest men to close up, and they advanced together, then set spur to their horses, and made a dash for a clump of bushes, where three horsemen were striving to get out through the tangle; and as they reached them Fred uttered an exclamation full ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn

... twenty-seven—was tall, as we have said, and slender, had a long, narrow head, which she carried on a neck too long, had very red cheeks, small snapping black eyes, very thin hair, of which she wore in front two very meagre curls done in cork-screw style, held her broad shoulders high, as if vainly striving to get them far as possible from her long, ant-like waist—well, this is enough, for at the very first glance Philip St. Leger turned away his eyes and ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee

... will be produced, and godliness will decline; for, says Peter, unless we dwell as heirs together of the grace of life, our prayers will be hindered. The pious one cannot rule in such a home. Thus divided and striving with each other, their house must fall. Where one draws heavenward and the other hellward, opposite attractions will be presented, and the believer will find constant obstructions to growth in grace, to the discharge ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips

... and sedentary confinement, and at last death came to his rescue. He had struggled all his life against persecution; against the difficulties of exile; against the enemy; and though he did not die on the field of battle, he died on the breach pen in hand, in work and duty, striving to commemorate the independence through which a noble people had worked their way to ultimate freedom and liberty. The following epitaph ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... many servants of your Majesty, and even prevents others who are striving to forward your royal service from giving credence to great things, has been the incredulity which they display regarding the greatness of the Indias. This has been true since the first discoverers, as is well known. For not only are we to believe that the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair

... escape, that it's right for me to take up hospital work again. But, Padre, I can't go—I won't go—until I've helped Mother Beckett arrange Jim's treasures in the room to be called his "den." She has been living for that, striving to grow strong enough for that. And I—oh, Padre!—I want to be the one to unpack his things and to touch each one with my hands. I want to leave something of myself in that room where, if he's dead, his spirit will surely come: where, if he lives, his body will come. If I leave behind me thoughts ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... two decades that we are now to consider we find the working out of all the large forces mentioned in our last chapter. After a generation of striving the white South was once more thoroughly in control, and the new program well under way. Predictions for both a broader outlook for the section as a whole and greater care for the Negro's moral and intellectual advancement were destined not to be fulfilled; and ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... her eyes, as though striving to recall something, and in that position she remained, bent ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux

... up, in this distracting fashion, at examination point, until, at the end of three years, he was set down to a table and questioned pell-mell upon all the different matters with which he had been striving to make acquaintance. A worse system and one more calculated to obstruct the acquisition of sound knowledge and to give full play to the "crammer" and the "grinder" could hardly have been devised by human ingenuity. Of late years great reforms have taken place. ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley

... a little constraint. Mr. Hazlewood received his guests in his drawing-room and it had the chill and the ceremony of a room which is seldom used. But the constraint wore off at the table. Most of those present were striving to set Stella Ballantyne at her ease, and she was at a comfortable distance from Mrs. Pettifer, with Mr. Hazlewood at her side. She was conscious that she was kept under observation and from time to time the knowledge ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason

... place, and, to make it easier for him, pressed the teat into his mouth. Martin was not accustomed to feed in that way, and he not only refused to suck, but continued to cry with indignation at such treatment, and to struggle with all his little might to free himself. His striving was all in vain; and by-and-by the man, seeing that he would not suck, had a fresh idea, and, gripping Martin more firmly than ever, with one hand forced and held his mouth open, and with the other drew a stream of milk into it. After choking and spluttering ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.

... have come from this Mrs. West, you can tell her from me, as she has made her bed she may lie in it. She has not taken under her roof my granddaughter, but the daughter of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald, the play actress. I did my best for the girl, striving to bring her up to be a good and modest woman, despite the bad blood of the mother who broke my son's heart and killed him, who did what she could, and has been doing what she could in the years since, to disgrace our house. I might have known I should strive in vain, ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... declared Rod, his words now rising in the excitement which he was vainly striving to suppress. "It's hard, but see how your knife point has scratched it! It weighs a quarter of an ounce! Are there ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood

... Despising the Bagatelle, there is the serious regular conversation bore, who listens to himself, talks from notes, and is witty by rule. All rules for conversation were no doubt invented by bores, and if followed would make all men and women bores, either in straining to be witty, or striving to be easy. There is no more certain method, even for him who may possess the talent in the highest degree, to lose the power of conversing, than by talking to support his character. One eye to your reputation, one on the company, ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... she heard? Jack was wondering all the time, and he groaned inwardly when he saw how little effect his warning had upon the girl he was striving to protect. Women are natural actresses, but Lydia was not acting now. She was genuinely fond of Jean and he could see that she had accepted his warnings as the ravings of a diseased imagination. He confirmed this view when after a morning of sight-seeing and the exploration of the spot where, ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace

... gnawing at my heart; every piece of gold I count out, I see his hands outstretched over it, and hear him whisper 'Mine!' He gives me no peace night or day; he is always by me; I have no rest. And you must come, adding to my torture, and striving to tear from me that for which I bartered conscience, peace, soul, everything that would make life desirable. If there is mercy in you, leave me with what I give you, and come back no more. Life has so little to offer, that rather than bear this continued torment and apprehension ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... expanding efforts, for he commented and criticized, encouraged and advised freely. There was a humour in his letters that I liked; it leavened them with its sanity and reacted on me most wholesomely, counteracting many of the morbid tendencies and influences of my life. I found myself striving to live up to the writer's ideal of philosophy and ambition, as pictured, often unconsciously, in ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... whole population of Stoneborough, Whitford, and Blewer was striving to press into court, but before the day's work began, Edward Anderson had piloted Mrs. Pugh to a commodious place, under the escort of his brother Harvey, who was collecting materials for an article ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge

... rabbits! my nice white rabbits; they are lost, they are all gone!" said she, weeping bitterly. "Come, dry your tears, my little cousin," said Josiah, kindly taking her hand, and striving to comfort her; "they cannot be far off, for I am sure they were ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie

... round. But was there to be no cessation of those perpetual gyrations? Yet no gesture, no devious step betrayed impatience. On they went, as if destined to move thus for ever. Looks long and earnest began now to be cast upon the new-made hillock, as if striving to draw inspiration thence, or reproaching its tenant with his unworthiness. No inspiration came, and gradually the steps became slower and more languid, yet still the measured tread went on. A darker and darker cloud settled on their weary faces, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams

... be obliged to place myself among them. If thou art one of those who, though they never write, criticise everyone that does; avaunt!—Thou art a professed enemy of mankind and of thyself, who wilt never be pleased nor let anybody be so, and knowest no better way to fame than by striving to lessen that of others; though wouldst thou write thou mightst be soon known, even by the butterwomen, and fly through the world in bandboxes. If thou art of the dissembling tribe, it is thy office to rail at those books which thou huggest in a corner. If thou art one of those eavesdroppers, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais

... standing before her and speaking, and then in a moment the outward calm which she had been vainly striving to observe came unexpectedly to her aid. She shook hands with him and explained why she was alone, and then, surprised at her own ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... higher; a bird soaring in the blue above us has something of the ethereal; we give wings to our angels. On the other hand, a serpent impresses us as something sinister. Trees, with their strange fight against all the laws of gravity, striving upward unceasingly, bring us something of hope and faith; the sight of them cheers us. A land without trees is depressing and gloomy. As Ruskin says, "The sea wave, with all its beneficence, is yet devouring ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell

... in that house. Sorrow, which had reigned for a time around that hearthstone, still lingered, striving to supersede the joy which must go hand in hand with purity; but its icy touch was to be of gentler mien, its cold, cold breath mingling with that of more genial spheres, helping to swell the—"Father, thy will be done." ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... Thirty Years' War for the benefit of his nation—even though this meant a league with heretics. At the moment when Frontenac first drew the sword France (in nominal support of her German allies) was striving to conquer Alsace. The victory which brought the French to the Rhine was won through the capture of Breisach, at the close of 1638. Then in swift succession followed those astounding victories of Conde and Turenne which ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby

... orange-glowing sphere lay there, quivering from the vibration; then the exhausts died and the wave of flame wavered and sank into nothingness. While their ear-drums continued the thunder, the three stared at the borer, not daring to approach, yet striving to solve the mystery of why it had sunk despite the up-thrust of ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various

... About being Ambitious The Housewife of a Peasant Family The Management of a Farm The Days when Statesmen were Boys Culture and Striving Essence of Rural Improvement A Hundred Beautiful Stories The Art of Composition The Preparation of the Conscript A Medical Treatise A Translation of "Self-Help" Nature and Human Life The Glories of Native Places Anecdotes ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott

... plausible, convincing. Any listener who had been on the point of accusing Persis of extravagance, must have humbly acknowledged his mistake and begged her pardon. But Persis had a harder task than to convince an outsider that she needed an addition to her wardrobe. She was striving, and without success, to alter her own uneasy conviction that the prospective visit of Justin Ware was responsible for her novel and engrossing ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith

... time demands and emphasizes, which will co-ordinate the data at present in the foreground of consciousness. Thus they conceive of the facts of Christian Theology as the goal towards which philosophy is (often unconsciously) striving, but at which it can never arrive without the "leap of faith." Once this leap is taken, however, these theological verities become the major factors in the data to be co-ordinated, and philosophy and theology come into that union and harmony which, in the eyes of the ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole

... stood between the referee and death. The discreet referee was approaching the grand stand as the least unsafe place. In a second a handful of executioners had somehow got on to the grass. And in the next second several policemen were in front of them, not striking nor striving to intimidate, but ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... that at any moment, for aught he knew, she might turn up. That was the worst of it, and the best. It kept hope alive, only to torture hope. It encouraged him to wait, to watch, to expect; to linger in his garden, gazing hungry-eyed up the lawns of Ventirose, striving to pierce the foliage that embowered the castle; to wander the country round-about, scanning every vista, scrutinising every shape and shadow, a tweed-clad Gastibelza. At any moment, indeed, she might turn up; but the days passed—the hypocritic days—and she ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... Minister] to-day, and to point out that in these circumstances Germany may be compelled to take similar measures which necessarily could not be kept secret, and which could not fail to cause great public excitement when they became known. In this way the two countries, although they are only striving for peace, will be compelled to at least a partial mobilization, which would ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... expression in the old man's face that dominated me. I tried to think it out. It had been a triumphant look; and more than that ... a triumphant toothless look. Was that the solution? I reflected that triumph is an expression that belongs to youth, to young things, to all that is striving upwards in growth. Surely old people should look only patient and resigned—never triumphant—in this world? Some strong action with regard to Alice's position would be necessary. It was absurd to think that her father should eternally come between her and me. It would be ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne

... and a soldierly self-possession, that venturous friend then drew the horse's head from the trough, and began to drive it down the street to the town-end port, striving as he did so to whistle, till he was rebuked for so doing, as I heard, by an old woman then going home, who said to him that it was a shame to hear such profanity in Irvine when a martyr doomed to die was lying in the tolbooth. To the ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt

... nomination. When he returned to Washington to finish his term, he began a double, desperate assault upon my friendship. The direct assault was unsuccessful,—I understood it, and I was in no need of lieutenants. More than I could easily take care of were already striving to serve me, scores of the brightest, most ambitious young men of the state eager to do my bidding, whatever it might be, in the hope that in return I would "take care of" them, would admit them to the coveted inclosure round the plum tree. The plum tree! Is there any kind of fruit which ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips

... Arthur's life, there was now no necessity. He was engaged to another woman; and Laura became his sister at once,—hiding, or banishing from herself, any doubts which she might have as to his choice; striving to look cheerfully forward, and hope for his prosperity; promising herself to do all that affection might do to ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... advanced for over two miles along the irregular valley of the Aire River and in the wooded hills of the Argonne that bordered the river, used by the enemy with all his art and weapons of defense. This sort of fighting continued against an enemy striving to hold every foot of ground and whose very strong counter-attacks challenged us at every point. On the 7th the First Corps captured Chatel-Chehery and continued along the river to Cornay. On the ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... your pledge to God, He, in turn, gives you His grace, and pledges Himself not to count against you the sins which remain in your nature after baptism, and not to regard them or to condemn you because of them. He is satisfied and well-pleased if you are constantly striving and desiring to slay these sins and to be rid of them by your death. For this cause, although the evil thoughts and appetites may be at work, nay, even although you may sin and fall at times, these sins are already done away by the power of the sacrament ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther

... 'when thou art as old as I, and hast learned to see how good it is, how all-good, thou wilt be able to say it without any striving. There was a time in my life when I too had to strive, for the thought that he was a hard master would come, and come again. But now that I have learned a little more of what he meaneth with me, what he would have of me and do for me, how he would make me pure of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... judge's son goes far with countrymen; and great striving there is with them who have great enemies and bad causes to get the judge's son to plead, promising themselves that the judge is as like to hear him, and to yield a verdict to his plea, as to any other lawyer. But what now shall we say concerning ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... authorities who denied the importance of the Veda for a historical study of Indian thought, boldly charging those wily priests, the Brahmans, with having withheld their sacred literature from any but their own caste. Now, so far from withholding it, the Brahmans have always been striving, and often striving in vain, to make the study of their sacred literature obligatory on all castes except the Sudras, and the passages just quoted from Manu show what penalties were threatened if children of the second and third ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... harm to Alexander; it is not on Russia that I am making war, no more than on Spain; I have only one enemy,—England, and it is her I am striving to reach in Russia; I will pursue her everywhere." During this speech the marshal bit his nails, as was his constant habit. On that day a magnificent review was held, at which all the princes of the Confederation were ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... to be damned; they look forward to the First of the Month with more fear and trembling than to the Last Day; and beseech a critic to be merciful upon them with far more earnestness than they ever beseeched their Maker. They pray through the press—vainly striving to give some publicity to what must be private for evermore; and are seen wiping away, at tea-parties, the tears of contrition and repentance for capital crimes perpetrated but on paper, and perpetrated thereon so paltrily, that so far from being worthy of hell-fire, such delinquents, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... by the perjured votes Of striving demagogues whose god is gold. Not one of these shall lead to Liberty. The weakness of the world cries out for strength. The sorrow of the world cries out for hope. ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... to endure. Especially annoying was it to find Arthur Weldon devoting himself assiduously to Louise, who looked charming in her rose gown and favored Arthur in a marked way, although Charlie Mershone, refusing to be ignored, also leaned over the counter of the booth and chatted continually, striving to draw Miss ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne

... replied Jane steadily, striving to keep back her tears, "perhaps some day. But you will think more of her happiness than of your own. Love, you know, seeks to make happy rather than to ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor

... and muscle of my whole system was in full stretch; and every facility of the mind brought into action striving to save myself from being re-captured. I dared not go to the forest, knowing that I might be tracked by blood-hounds, and overtaken. I was so fortunate as to find a hiding place in the city which seemed to be pointed out by the finger of Providence. After running across lots, ...
— Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself • Henry Bibb

... Across the seas the Emperor Napoleon, a long-nosed, short-bodied man of infinite genius for setting the world by the ears, has been warring with England for the last ten years and more. He and the British, with their blockades and embargoes and Orders in Council have long been striving to ruin each other, yet have achieved their greatest success in ruining a peaceable old gentleman in America who relies on his ships to bring him a livelihood. To oppress neutral shipping leads in the end to war, although ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs

... reason why Christ chiefly proposed humility to us, was because it especially removes the obstacle to man's spiritual welfare consisting in man's aiming at heavenly and spiritual things, in which he is hindered by striving to become great in earthly things. Hence our Lord, in order to remove an obstacle to our spiritual welfare, showed by giving an example of humility, that outward exaltation is to be despised. Thus humility ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... Dutch, who were desirous of reaching India by a route, in the course of which they would not be liable to meet with the Spaniards or Portuguese. They accordingly made four attempts between 1594 and 1596, but unsuccessfully. In the last voyage they reached Spitzbergen; but after striving in vain to penetrate to the north-east, they were obliged to winter on the north coast of Nova Zembla, in 76 deg. latitude. Here they built a smaller vessel out of the remains of the one they had brought from Holland, and arrived ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson

... their flight away from the river, and after that their return—and a second fight. It was then Bram Johnson had come into the scene. And back there, at the point from which the wolf-man had fled with her, was her FATHER. That was the chief thing she was striving to drive home in his comprehension of the situation. Her FATHER! And she believed he was alive, for it was an excitement instead of hopelessness or grief that possessed her as she talked to him. It gave him a sort of shock. ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood

... away, passion trickled away; how many meetings and hard partings; what an amount of wrestling with everything in general and in particular; how much purity of purpose dragged in the mud; how much striving for freedom and self-determination, resulting ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... piano-poem like "Scarbo" rouses the full might of the piano, and seems to bridge the way to the music of Leo Ornstein and the age of steel. And Ravel has some of the squareness, the sheerness and rigidity for which the ultra-modern are striving. The liquescence of Debussy has given away again to something more metallic, more solid and unflowing. There is a sort of new stiffness in this music. And in the field of harmony Ravel is steadily building upon Debussy. ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... keeping in closest touch, With what is finest in word and deed; It's being thorough, yet making speed; It's struggling on with a will to win, But taking loss with a cheerful grin; It's sharing sorrow and work and mirth And making better this good old earth; It's serving, striving through strain and stress, ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... 27th.—To return to what you say of France. Do you not think that a democratic republic, in which every citizen is striving to get all he can for his vote at the expense of the State, necessarily becomes the most rapacious and corrupt form of government? It is this which has raised the budgets of France for 1883 to 122 millions sterling; and if you add the communal expense, to 154 millions. It ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton

... fighting during the retreat except at isolated times and places; the situation was just this, that for the unique and imposed will that sways an army there had been substituted a multitude of individual wills all striving independently for ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... side, and recommending an adjournment to Bedlam. After a momentary whirl in the outer court-yard, the prison-door opened, and shut upon them. In the Lodge, which seemed by contrast with the outer noise a place of refuge and peace, a yellow lamp was already striving with the prison shadows. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... green life of the morne seems striving to descend, to invade the rest of the dead. It thrusts green hands over the wall,—pushes strong roots underneath;—it attacks every joint of the stone-work, patiently, ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn

... become almost hardened to the German method of making war on the civil population—that system of striving to act upon civilian "nerves" by calculated brutality which is summed up in the word "frightfulness". But the publication of these figures awoke some of the old horror of German warfare. The sum total of lives lost brought home to the people at home the fact that bombardment from air and sea, ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton

... through his teeth, striving to still the storm of sobs that shook him from head to foot. "Let me alone. In the morning!—how can you speak of ...
— The Nuernberg Stove • Louisa de la Rame (AKA Ouida)

... once told her that obscurity was my object, and that it was enough that there was peace in the house, for I was engaged over a mighty project, which I could not perfect with so many striving to do me honor. If she was before pleased, she now became exultant, and nimbly led the way up two pair of narrow stairs, entering more freely into conversation, and saying the parlor was at my service when company called. 'Now these are not large, but comfortable rooms,' she continued, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"

... between the essential and the non-essential, finds in the series of articles, reprinted in book-form under the title The Two Maps, a rock-basis of general principles on which it may rest secure from the hurling waves of sensationalism, ignorance, misrepresentation and foolishness which are striving perpetually to engulf it. ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... was long before he came again— So long that Margaret was woman grown; And oft she wished for his return in vain, Calling him softly in an undertone; Repeating words that he had said the while, And striving to recall his look ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow

... striving hard to keep down emotion; but his lips were set firmly and the blood had left them, and his ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... she said, eyeing him closely, and striving anxiously to read his face. He looked at her sharply, but the softness in her black eyes somehow reassured him, and he ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the nobles against you: the King and the people are openly for France. The revolution which you have made from below upwards will be slowly effected in Prussia from above downwards: the King is a democrat after his fashion: he is always striving to curtail the privileges of the nobles, but by slow means. In a few years feudal rights will cease to ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose

... down our eyes to muse over a fresco of Giotto, and are reminded of the transitoriness of life by the mortuary tablets under our feet. The vast superiority of Bunyan over Spenser lies in the fact that we help make his allegory out of our own experience. Instead of striving to embody abstract passions and temptations, he has given us his own in all their pathetic simplicity. He is the Ulysses of his own prose-epic. This is the secret of his power and his charm, that, while the representation of what may happen to ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell

... though he too was homesick, could still eat, even though nothing better than polenta was offered him. He sat down with Carlotta and Luigi before the fire on the ground, while Beppina stayed in the back of the van, hugging the monkey to her lonely heart and striving ...
— The Italian Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... same time, he leaves to each his individual physiognomy.... Catherine de Medici is painted there in all her dissimulation and her network of artifices, in which she herself was often caught; ambitious of sovereign power without possessing either the force or the genius for it; striving to obtain it by craft, and using for this purpose a continual system of what we should call today 'see-sawing'—'rousing and elevating for a time one faction, putting to sleep or lowering another; uniting herself sometimes with the feeblest side out of caution, lest the stronger ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... in degree, with that which a man feels who has lain sick with a fever fifteen or twenty days, during which time he has taken little food, and been subjected to the weakening influence of medicines; but who on a sudden manifests great strength, striving to rise from his bed, etc., and in his delirious efforts must be restrained perhaps by force. Now no man in his senses will call this any real increase of strength in the sick man, who has been starving thus long; ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... The Reindeer was wallowing in the snow-white smother, her rails flush with the sea, the water scudding across her deck in foaming cataracts. The air was filled with flying spray, which made the scene appear hazy and unreal. One of the men was clinging to the perilous after-deck and striving to cast off the water-logged skiff. The boy, leaning far over the cockpit-rail and holding on for dear life, was passing him a knife. The second man stood at the wheel, putting it up with flying hands and ...
— The Cruise of the Dazzler • Jack London

... gentlemen of St. Clement's Church, of this city, with their frequent English visiting clergymen, are not only trying their best to carry Christianity back into the dark ages, by reinvesting it with all old-time traditions and mummeries, but they are striving anew to forge chains for the minds, consciences, and bodies of women whom the spirit of Christian progress has, in a measure, made free in this country. The sermon of the Rev. Knox Little, rector of St. Alban's Church, Manchester, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... as he sat on his doorstep considering this. He had been traveling the same road for many months,—denying his natural promptings, stifling a natural passion, surrendering himself to an obsession of vindictiveness, planning and striving to return evil for what he conceived to be evil, and being himself corrupted by the corrosive ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... sarsebox making inquiry arter you, missis," said this artist, striving with a lump of putty that no incorporation could ever persuade to become equal to new. He was making it last out, not to get another half-a-pound just yet a while. "Couldn't say his name, but I rather fancy he belongs in ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... burned in the window, to which the black ladder had often been raised for the sliding away of all that was most precious in this world to a striving wife and a brood of hungry babies; and Stephen added to his other thoughts the stern reflection, that of all the casualties of this existence upon earth, not one was dealt out with so unequal a hand as Death. The inequality ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*

... first pass the baggage train sinks down into the depths, again to climb upward on the next ridge, to continue striving upward ever toward higher passages, slowly pushing forward toward its objective against the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... how successful his comrade was, attacked the three giants who were striving to make him a captive. He succeeded in disposing of them, knocking one down so hard that the man was unable to rise until his companions ...
— Five Thousand Miles Underground • Roy Rockwood

... "let us set about becoming saints, and we shall obtain more quickly the fair fame we are striving after; for you know, senor, yesterday or the day before yesterday (for it is so lately one may say so) they canonised and beatified two little barefoot friars, and it is now reckoned the greatest good luck to kiss or touch the iron chains with which they girt and tortured their bodies, and they are ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... secondly, the tone of melancholy which already makes itself felt here and there, especially in one rather remarkable passage. As to the Christian feeling, we find M. Rio described as belonging to "that noble school of men who are striving to rekindle the dead beliefs of France, to rescue Frenchmen from the camp of materialistic or pantheistic ideas, and rally them round that Christian banner which is the banner of true progress and ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... his old officers, he alludes to the cholera, then raging in his neighbourhood; "which," he says, "I am much inclined to consider an infliction of Providence, to show his power to the discontented of the world, who have long been striving against the government of man, and are commencing their attacks on our Church. But they will fail! God will never suffer his Church to fall; and the world will see that his mighty arm is not shortened, nor his power diminished. I put my trust in Him, and not in man; ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler

... a typical journalist, of very fine character. He was an enthusiast, more than commonly perfervid, even for a Scot. Whatever he believed, he believed with all his heart and soul. He was always in earnest, and always striving to give effect to his opinions. His leaders were really polished essays, of remarkable point and brilliancy. His conversation was as striking and epigrammatic as his writing. He was inspired by generous impulses, ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.

... has said, we have been having something of a contest. For the last ten days we have been divided into Sherman men and Foraker men, and we have been striving against each other. There has been possibly some rasping and some friction, but at this hour it is our highest duty to remember that from now on henceforth, in the language again of the Senator, we must remember that we are no longer Sherman men nor ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... this centre, then that beautiful simplicity, at once the charm and the power of a truly great personality, enters into our lives. Then all striving for effect,—that sure indicator of weakness and a lack of genuine power,—is absent. This striving for effect that is so common is always an indicator of a lack of something. It brings to mind the man who rides ...
— In Tune with the Infinite - or, Fullness of Peace, Power, and Plenty • Ralph Waldo Trine

... insincere. It might have applied to another person; in Jane's case it was mere sophistry. Her nature was home-keeping; to force her into alliance with conscious philanthropists was to set her in the falsest position conceivable; striving to mould herself to the desires of those she loved, she would suffer patiently and in secret mourn for the time when she had been obscure and happy. These things Sidney knew with a certainty only less than that ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... Some of its own nobles had been bought by Russian gold, Russian armies had overrun the land, and a Prussian force was marching to their aid. At Grodno the Russian general proudly took his seat on that throne which he was striving to overthrow. The defenders of Poland had been dispersed, their property confiscated, their families reduced to poverty. The Russians, swarming through the kingdom, committed the greatest excesses, while Warsaw, which had ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... THE FOOLISHNESS OF PREACHING, striving to commend ourselves unto every man's conscience, in the sight of GOD. From the press, we shall promulgate our sentiments as widely as practicable. We shall endeavor to secure the cooeperation of all persons, of whatever name or sect. The triumphant progress of the cause of ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward

... divine Scriptures recklessly and without fear; they have set aside the rule of ancient faith; and Christ they have not known, not endeavoring to learn what the divine Scriptures declare, but striving laboriously after any form of syllogism which may be found to suit their impiety. And if any one brings before them a passage of divine Scripture, they see whether a conjunctive or a disjunctive form of syllogism can ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... If the colossal pile beneath him still vibrated with it, was it not as with a last rise of sap within its ancient walls, a reinvigoration of that Catholic blood which formerly had demanded that the pile should be a stupendous one, the veritable king of temples, and which now was striving to reanimate it with the powerful breath of life, and this at the very hour when death was beginning to fall upon its over-vast, deserted nave and aisles? The crowd was still streaming forth, filling the piazza, and Pierre's heart was wrung by frightful anguish, for that throng ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... myself, he did not know how to act. No doubt he had been deceiving himself as to his position with Seraphina. He was a man who in his wishes. His desire of revenge on me, the downfall of his hopes (he could no longer deceive himself), a desperate striving of thought for their regaining, his impulse towards the impossible—all these emotions paralyzed ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... ungrammatical conclusion, the speech called forth the resounding hurrahs of the Prince and his gentlemen, and once more Johnnie had to wait, striving to appear properly modest, and twirling a gold watch chain all of heavy links. But he could not keep his nostrils from swelling, or his eyes from flashing. And his ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates



Words linked to "Striving" :   strive, endeavour, endeavor, pains, jehad, strain, jihad, try, nisus, effort, attempt



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