Aspired Quotes & Sayings

I never aspired to be a television producer and a movie director, and I'm shocked that this idea is still going on. — Jeff Tremaine

Alice loved in order to make up for her own insufficiencies, she searched in others for qualities she aspired to, respected but lacked. Her emotional needs were like a puzzle incomplete without a segment brought by another but the dimensions of the void altered in response to self-development, the piece which fitted at fifteen would no longer fit at thirty. The gap redrew its contours, and unless the puzzle-person kept up she would be left to divorce or awkwardly force the issue. — Alain De Botton

I never aspired to be up front. When I was a kid, I didn't ever look in the mirror with a hairbrush going, "Hey, I'm Elvis!" — Vince Gill

The aim to which I have aspired for so many years, my nightly dream, the object of my prayers in heaven, Security- I have gained it. It is God's will. I must do nothing contrary to the will of God. And why is it God's will? That I may carry on what I have begun, that I may do good, that I may be one day a grand and encouraging example, that it may be said that there was finally some little happiness resulting from this suffering which I have undergone and this virtue to which I have returned! It is decided, let the matter alone! Let us not interfere with God! — Victor Hugo

I aspired to be extremely sophisticated. — Linda Hunt

My father's father wrote for a Philadelphia newspaper and aspired to be a playwright. We had in our house a couple of crazy unproduced plays that he had written. For the one creative writing class I took in my life, I didn't do any writing - I decided that I would plagiarize his terrible play to not fail the class. — Stephen Gaghan

But since I realised that peace and freedom were unattainable on earth, my spirit aspired aloft, and everything that my chosen path required ceased to conflict with my conscience, because my conscience was calling me out into space, and was not much interested in what was happening on earth. — Victor Pelevin

Lumpy and lazy; I aspired to lethargy. In the second year of university, I missed half my classes just because I couldn't pull myself out of bed. — Victor LaValle

I had given up ( around 1950, fh) any ambition of making a career as an artist ... ..I had lost all interest in the art shown in galleries and museums, and I no longer aspired to fit in that world. I loved the paintings done by children, and my only desire was to do the same for my own pleasure. — Jean Dubuffet

I never aspired to be Speaker simply so I could say, 'I am the Speaker of the House of Commons,' and tell my children that. — John Bercow

ROSA MET ME at the door with a shotgun. Strictly speaking, not aimed at me, but you don't really have to aim a sawed-off shotgun. She swung it toward me. "You, get in there." She turned her attention to the crowd. "The rest of you will take a number and have a seat." Her paperwork skills might have been lousy, but her personal touch was something I aspired to. — J.C. Nelson

I aspired to be a writer and then I just started getting acting work. I really didn't have a direct goal, I just knew I wanted to be in this industry telling stories and doing this for a job. I thought my path was going to be as a writer, but I'm pretty happy doing it as an actor. — Jake M. Johnson

Of course, relative citation frequencies are no measure of relative importance. Who has not aspired to write a paper so fundamental that very soon it is known to everyone and cited by no one? — Abraham Pais

Graduation, the hush-hush magic time of frills and gifts and congratulations and diplomas, was finished for me before my name was called. The accomplishment was nothing. The meticulous maps, drawn in three colors of ink, learning and spelling decasyllabic words, memorizing the whole of The Rape of Lucrece - it was for nothing. Donleavy had exposed us.
We were maids and farmers, handymen and washerwomen, and anything higher that we aspired to was farcical and presumptuous. — Maya Angelou

The good-to-great leaders never wanted to become larger-than-life heroes. They never aspired to be put on a pedestal or become unreachable icons. They were seemingly ordinary people quietly producing extraordinary results. — James C. Collins

Until the end of the nineteenth century these undergraduates never numbered more than a few thousand. Entirely on their own, however, and in
defiance of the most integrated absolutism of the time, they aspired to liberate and provisionally did
contribute to the liberation of forty million muzhiks. Almost all of them paid for this liberation by suicide,
execution, prison, or madness. The entire history of Russian terrorism can be summed up in the struggle
of a handful of intellectuals to
abolish tyranny, against a background of a silent populace. Their debilitated victory was finally betrayed.
But by their sacrifice and even by their most extreme negations they gave substance to a new standard of
values, a new virtue, which even today has not ceased to oppose tyranny and to give aid to the cause of
true liberation. — Albert Camus

For too long the ideal role of the individual in our society - the role the talented young have aspired to almost by convention - has been that of the specialist. It has surely become as plain as it needs to be that what we need most now are not the specialists with their narrowed vision and short-range justifications, but men of sympathy and imagination and free intelligence who can recognize and hold themselves answerable to the complex responsibilities of a man's life in the world. — Wendell Berry

In the ancient tales, to which each Viking aspired, strenght was the only virtue, iron the only currency that mattered. Loki with his cunning, whereby a weaker man might outdo a stronger one, was an anathema to these folk. — Mark Lawrence

Faithful I have sought to be in all my ways Since my conception in fire and in water.
"To be a fount of wisdom and purity of spirit
Far more prized than veins of gold and silver
And to this my soul has aspired.

"Not due to my own pursuits
That man named me the Faithful Elder.
A Higher Oath than mine has fixed
My pleasant boundaries
And the times of my bursting forth into the open
Not of my choosing.

"The countenances of multitudes I have beheld
And have seen them take delight in my greeting.
They throng close to my doorway
Men, women and children
Eager witnesses of my mystery.

"From every corner of the earth, bringing
The languages of ancient lands upon their lips
And their spices upon their garments.

"And what they find takes on a meaning of its own
Within each
Amidst the resplendent pillar. — Myrtle Brooks

There was a time, not so long ago, when the stupid and uneducated aspired to be thought intelligent and cultured people doing their best to feign stupidity. — Ernest Hemingway,

Hitherto I had been convinced that my friend wanted to become an artist, a painter, or perhaps an architect. Now this was no longer the case. Now he aspired to something higher, which I could not yet fully grasp. It rather surprised me, as I thought that the vocation of the artist was for him the highest, most desirable goal. But now he was talking of a mandate which, one day, he would receive from the people, to lead them out of servitude to the heights of freedom.
It was an unknown youth who spoke to me in that strange hour. He spoke of a special mission which one day would be entrusted to him, and I, his only listener, could hardly understand what he meant. Many years had to pass before I realized the significance of this enraptured hour for my friend. — August Kubizek

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to, because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs, something that no other species has ever aspired to do. — Richard Dawkins

I aspired from early on to write a novel, to be in the 'New Yorker,' to be on Broadway, and at least in a fleeting way, I got all those things. — Mark O'Donnell

She fell in love with freedom. In the Sommers' home she had lived shut up within four walls, in a stagnant atmosphere where time moved in circles and where she could barely glimpse the horizon through distorted windowpanes. She had grown up clad in the impenetrable armor of good manners and conventions, trained from girlhood to please and serve, bound by corset, routines, social norms, and fear. Fear had been her companion: fear of God and his unpredictable justice, of authority, of her adoptive parents, of illness and evil tongues, of anything unknown or different; fear of leaving the protection of her home and facing the dangers outside; fear of her own fragility as a woman, of dishonor and truth. Hers had been a sugar-coated reality built on the unspoken, on courteous silences, well-guarded secrets, order, and discipline. She had aspired to virtue but now she questioned the meaning of the word. — Isabel Allende

From my birth I have aspired like the eagle - but unlike the eagle, my wings have failed ... Congratulate me then that I have found a fitting scope for my powers. — Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

As a displaced community, Tibetans often speak of learning to look to the future without forsaking tradition. And as Tibetans continue their flight from Tibet to India or Nepal and then scatter farther and farther away from the physical land of Tibet, the conversations on identity and culture become more crucial and complex. As the distance increases so does the desperation in keeping Tibet as the eventual home, our aspired home. Yet it is the loss of Tibet and its very distance that also awakens us to view patriotism and identity in new ways that are not guided solely by Buddhist philosophy. Self-assertion- an approach avoided in the past because of the Buddhist aspiration to prevent focus on the self- enters our identity as Tibetans. — Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

Because I've always aspired to direct and produce, I've literally worked with about 200 directors and countless producers, so what I appreciate is how, through osmosis and through actually asking questions and through people offering wisdom, there's a lot in there. — Malik Yoba

All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. Howsoever, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty. — Walter Raleigh

The orange-red lipstick named "Hibiscus Frenzy" that was produced by a giant American corporation, which Glamora was paid to wear so that every factory and office girl in England and America and possibly Australia who aspired to look like her would buy it, glowed under the sun. — Ilil Arbel

I met, not long ago, a young man who aspired to become a novelist. Knowing that I was in the profession, he asked me to tell him how he should set to work to realize his ambition. I did my best to explain. 'The first thing,' I said, 'is to buy quite a lot of paper, a bottle of ink, and a pen. After that you merely have to write.' — Aldous Huxley

I haven't got one or two people that I aspired to be like. — Ruth Wilson

Lily liked the fog, and didn't even mind the cold wind. She reckoned that Ocean Beach, the dunes there, and the Sunset were the closest San Francisco was going to come to the foreboding, wind-swept moors of England, where she had aspired to suffer romance and heartache when she was a kid. The foghorn, however, rather than a lonesome lament that conjured images of Heathcliff's dark figure, waiting with clenched jaw on the moor for her to bring light and warmth into his life, sounded like a distressed moose tied up in her neighbor's garage, having his nut sack singed with jumper cables at a precise interval calculated to keep her from falling asleep. Which, in turn, made her think of what complete douche bags people could be when all you wanted to do was borrow a defibrillator. Then she was awake and angry. — Christopher Moore

If the Coastal Republic had believed in the existence of virtue, it could at least have aspired to hypocrisy. — Neal Stephenson

I have always aspired towards other people's looks. When I was young, I loved teddy boys; I thought they looked wonderful. Then I was a cowboy in Arizona, really for the clothes! I had a ranch for five years; I had chaps made of bearskin. — Nicholas Haslam

Laziness isn't merely a physical phenomenon,about being a couch potato,stuffing your face with fries and watching cricket all day. It's a mental thing, too, and that's the part I have never aspired for. — Shah Rukh Khan

The only mainstream American household I know well is the one I grew up in, and I can report that my father, who was not a reader, nevertheless had some acquaintance with James Baldwin and John Cheever, because Time magazine put them on its cover and Time, for my father, was the ultimate cultural authority. In the last decade, the magazine whose red border twice enclosed the face of James Joyce has devoted covers to Scott Turow and Stephen King. These are honorable writers; but no one doubts it was the size of their contracts that won them covers. The dollar is now the yardstick of cultural authority, and an organ like Time, which not long ago aspired to shape the national taste, now serves mainly to reflect it. — Jonathan Franzen

We relied on the slave labor of African peoples to build the levees that protected our homes and farmland, to harvest and cook our food, to care for our children, to chop, and hoe, and sweat, and sew, and nurse us back to health, while we aspired to be persons of leisure, or at least to leave the really brutal work to them. — Tim Wise

A lot of us first aspired to far-ranging travel and exotic adventure early in our teens; these ambitions are, in fact, adolescent in nature, which I find an inspiring idea ... Thus, when we allow ourselves to imagine as we once did, we know, with a sudden jarring clarity, that if we don't go right now, we're never going to do it. And we'll be haunted by our unrealized dreams and know that we have sinned against ourselves gravely. — Tim Cahill

More than ever knowing in his fragile bones that it was the duty of men who aspired to the condition of humanity to protect children and kill for them if necessary. — Paulette Jiles

No matter what our decorating style - realized or aspired to the essential spiritual grace our home should possess is the solace of comfort. — Sarah Ban Breathnach

The long, cold Minnesota winters instilled in me a fascination for exotic far off places; I aspired toward a career in tropical diseases and world health problems. — Peter Agre

The flash lights irritated the women's eyes, but in the sudden glare their faces, so empty of expression when they had sex, at last came alive, and I saw two bluecollar housewives who had ditched their husbands and aspired to the most bourgeois of lives. — J.G. Ballard

There has to be a reason of whether you look right or you bring the emotional or intellectual baggage of what's required for the storytelling. For me, it's not something I've aspired to say, "I'm going to be working in Hollywood." — Ciaran Hinds

This is the kind of work I've aspired to my whole career. — Treat Williams

What we aspired to in 1998, we have wildly surpassed. And I know we all feel incredibly grateful and lucky this band has been able to have the life that it's had. — Ben Gibbard

I'm a kid who grew up in an all African-American neighborhood and got into schools and aspired to just be me, and didn't worry about labels or anything. Just wanted to be a success at what I did. — Darius Rucker

I can tell you that I never aspired to be president. I always honour something that Commander Chavez told us: that while we were in these posts, we must be clothed in humility and understand that we are here to protect the man and woman of the streets. — Nicolas Maduro

In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it. — Christian Nestell Bovee

Fyodor Pavlovich, for example, began with practically nothing, was a landowner of the very least important category, went trotting around other people's dinner tables, aspired to the rank of sponge, but at the moment of his decease turned out to possess something to the tune of one hundred thousand roubles in ready money. And yet at the same time he had persisted all his life in being one of the most muddle-headed madcaps in the whole of our district. I repeat: here there was no question of stupidity; the bulk of these madcaps are really quite sharp and clever - but plain muddle-headedness, and, moreover, of a peculiar, national variety. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

I have a famous brother, and I see what his life's like. He can stay places 15 minutes, and then he's got to leave. So I've seen what it's like to be famous, and I haven't really aspired to be a huge mega-star - not that I've had that opportunity. — Joel Murray

It's been an obsession of various genres, disciplines, and aspects and elements of movie-making. It's always been something that I've really aspired to, so doing something new and different, reinventing myself and working with new people is just the passport to the amazing world that is the movies. — David Gordon Green

This easy obedience to tyrants, which often verged on devotion, always surprised him. He had come to believe that the majority of human beings aspired only to slavery. He had long wondered by what ruse this enormous enterprise of mystification orchestrated by the wealthy had been able to spread and prosper on every continent. Karamallah belonged to that category of true aristocrats who had tossed out like old soiled clothes all the values and all the dogma that these infamous individuals had generated over centuries in order to perpetuate their supremacy. And so his joy in being alive was in no way altered by these stinking dogs' enduring power on the planet. On the contrary, he found their stupid and criminal acts to be an inexhaustible source of entertainment -- so much so that there were times when he had to admit he would miss this mob were they to disappear; he feared the aura of boredom that would envelop mankind once purged of its vermin. — Albert Cossery

(I always thought that they should make an epidural that works from the neck up, which was a condition I aspired to for most of what I laughingly refer to as my adult life.) — Carrie Fisher

Even while in school - initially, Vineberg Allen in Mussourie, and later, a number of schools in Ludhiana - I aspired to achieve great things in life. Admittedly, I wasn't quite sure about what these great things would be. — Sunil Mittal

She hated perfume. It was a cover for poor hygiene or for body shame. Clean people never aspired to the floral. — Lauren Groff

In the '50s, women aspired to dress like their mothers - this polished, controlled, formal way of dressing. Then all of a sudden in the '60s, going into the '70s, they stopped dressing like their mothers. — Robin Givhan

The question of what Jesus thought about himself is a critical issue. Some professors maintain that the myth of Jesus' deity was superimposed on the Jesus tradition by overzealous supporters years after his death. The real Jesus, these professors believe, would roll over in his grave if he knew people were worshiping him. If you strip away the legends and go back to the earliest material about him, they say you'll find he never aspired to be anything more than an itinerant teacher and occasional rabble-rouser. — Lee Strobel

It's a rented house right along the Mississippi River, a house that screams Suburban Nouveau Riche, the kind of place I aspired to as a kid from my split-level, shag-carpet side of town. The kind of house that is immediately familiar: a generically grand, unchallenging, new, new, new house that my wife would-and did-detest. 'Should I remove my soul before I come inside?' Her first line upon arrival. — Gillian Flynn

The force that has overcome Europe and destroyed entire states within days could cope with us, a handful of youngsters. It was an act of desperation ... We aspired to only one thing: to sell our lives for the highest possible price. — Mordechaj Tenenbaum

The moral high ground to which I aspired had turned into a slippery slope. — Alfred Alcorn

It made no sense to me that people would hate the very thing they aspired to become. — Steve Toltz

Of course the lower classes have always felt downtrodden and aspired to a better life. But there is this theory that people respond to a class structure in England - there was a time when people knew who they were and knew whom they served and as long as management wasn't abusive, it was a good life for people. — Damian Lewis

I'm a solid Labour party supporter. I aspired to be a Labour MP, but it's difficult to make the leap from the Foreign Office. — Jonathan Powell

Aunt Helen Beck had many intentions about her death. She was about being dead the way some people are about being British - she wasn't, and it seemed she would never be, but it was clearly something she aspired to, since all the people she respected were. — Elizabeth McCracken

What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me. — Robert Browning

What she aspired to was a kind of delirious perfection. What Lilia wanted was to travel, but not only that; she wanted to be a citizen of everywhere, free-wheeling and capable of instant flight. — Emily St. John Mandel

In my dreams, I entered a world where success was based on ethics and proper dealings, not bribes and scams. My vision of sucess including marrying Sophia, having joyful children, unassuming friends, and warmhearted neighbors. I aspired for an environment where I would be valued for my good character, not the strength of my aggression. I wanted to leave West Beirut, the four square miles of a lesser world. — Sam Wazan

I proceed with the proper subject of this discourse; namely, the further changes in scientific belief, which have occurred within my own recollection, even since the time when I first aspired to authorship, now forty- five years ago. — Asa Gray

A lot of YouTubers get that mainstream celebrity, they get these big deals, maybe a book deal or a TV deal or whatever it is they aspired to do, and they kind of abandon ship on what got them to that point. — Tyler Oakley

That was all he had ever aspired to, with a wife thrown into the
bargain, maybe, and a kid or two to go along with her. It had
never felt like too much to ask for, but after three years of struggling
to write his dissertation, Tom finally understood that he
didn't have it in him to finish. Or, if he did have it in him, he
couldn't persuade himself to believe in the value of doing it
anymore. — Paul Auster

I missed Britain. I'm from here and I never aspired to go to L.A. - it sort of happened by default. I loved being there. I found it a little bit difficult at first, but I found my way. — Ashley Jensen

I was not such a great student, .. So, when I graduated high school, I went to work cooking. I cooked a little at home, but back then, cooking wasn't really a profession that you aspired to, unless your family was in the business. I looked at it as a job. My first job was at Joe Allen's, and I remember there was a photo over the bar of the Triple Dead Heat from the 1944 Carter Handicap. — Bobby Flay

I said 'no' to the 'Born Survivor' producer three times because I've never aspired to be a TV man. — Bear Grylls

But a generation that does not aspire to seriousness, to meaning, is unworthy to walk in the shadow of those who have gone before, I mean those who have struggled and surmounted, I mean those who have aspired, I mean Rembrandt, I mean Turner, I mean Michelangelo and Matisse ... I mean obviously Rothko. — John Logan

Well, I once lived in a town full of ambitious people, people who aspired to having, be it wealth or power. It was an unhappy town. Your cause may be more noble than theirs, but nevertheless it is important to know the difference between having and being. If desire burns too strong in a man it will consume him. A man who says he will not rest until he has made a certain amount of money will not rest even then, for his desire will drive him to greater wealth. A man who says he will not be happy until he has obtained a certain woman will seek another once he has had her. I know this to be true because I was such a man. If you are not happy now you may never be happy. — Danny Scheinmann

I've never aspired to be more than a dreamer. I paid no attention to those who spoke to me of living. I've always belonged to what isn't where I am and to what I could never be. Whatever isn't mine, no matter how base, has always had poetry for me. — Fernando Pessoa

As an immerser I progressed to the ranks I aspired to - those that granted me a certain cachet and income while keeping me from fundamental responsibilities. This is what I excelled at: the life-technique of aggregated skill, luck, laziness and chutzpah that we call floaking. — China Mieville

I don't think so, in so far as I always aspired to play the way I do now but just couldn't get the sounds out always due to technical limitations - now I can pretty much play what I hear in realtime. — Gary Lucas

I'm just an entertainer. All I want to be is funny. I never aspired to play Hamlet. — Danny Kaye

But more important than all these lovely features of gracious living was the camaraderie of the young residents, who aspired to better lives on the wings of their talent and creativity. — Adriana Trigiani

The invention of photography has dealt a mortal blow to the old modes of expression, in painting as well as in poetry, where automatic writing, which appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, is a true photography of thought. Since a blind instrument now assured artists of achieving the aim they had set themselves up to that time, they now aspired, not without recklessness, to break with the imitation of appearances. — Andre Breton

Because mankind can circumvent evolutionary law, it is incumbent upon him, say evolutionary biologists to develop another law to abide by if he wishes to survive, to not outstrip his food base. He must learn restraint. He must derive some other, wiser way of behaving toward the land. He must be more attentive to the biological imperatives of the system of sun-driven protoplasm upon which he, too, is still dependent. Not because he must, because he lacks inventiveness, but because herein is the accomplishment of the wisdom that for centuries he has aspired to. Having taken on his own destiny, he must now think with critical intelligence about where to defer. — Barry Lopez

I had never imagined myself, nor aspired to be, a member of a royal family. I wanted to be in the Peace Corps, not a princess! — Queen Noor Of Jordan

Everything gets thrown off depending on whether the Packers are playing. I grew up in L.A., and we had a terrible quarterback, Roman Gabriel. When I was 11 years old, I fired him, I fired the Rams, and I picked a quarterback I aspired to be. That was Bart Starr. That's how long I've been a Packers fan. — Lyor Cohen

I never aspired to be the PM ... Why should I quit over a silly issue like corruption? - Devender Singh — Tuhin A. Sinha

American literature has never been content to be just one among the many literatures of the Western World. It has always aspired to be the literature not only of a new continent but of a New World. — Christopher Dawson

In high school I had B's and C's, not too many A's, but I must have done well on that medical school test, and I must have had some charisma in the interview, so I ended up in medicine. Being a general practitioner was all I aspired to. — Barry Marshall

Women who once aspired to the image of superwoman now worry about becoming superdrudge. Those who wanted to have it all now ask whether they have to do it all. — Ellen Goodman

I wrote down all the things I would no longer accept in my life, all the things I would no longer tolerate, and all the things that I aspired to becoming. — Tony Robbins

Some music has words, and rock had words that at times aspired to poetry, but the words were always sounds first, spoken to the body before the mind. — Rebecca Solnit

I reflected on the fact that no matter how good I aspired to be, I was never going to achieve perfection — Patti Smith

It advances Democracy": As it was throughout the Cold War, the response here should be "Democracy for whom?" "Democracy" has never been a univocal concept; and as a word, it has surely by now been degraded by so many reactionary projects, such as U.S. imperialism itself and the various middle class comprador movements that have furthered its purposes through coups and color revolutions. It is not the nominal political form aspired to, but the social goods that are being sought, that should weigh our evaluations of those who use such rhetoric. — Anonymous

We are sometimes made aware of a kindness long passed, and realize that there have been times when our friends' thoughts of us were of so pure and lofty a character that they passed over us like the winds of heaven unnoticed; when they treated us not as what we were, but as what we aspired to be. — Henry David Thoreau

Forty of Paracelsus's theological manuscripts still survive, as well as sixteen Bible commentaries, twenty sermons, twenty works on the Eucharist, and seven on the Virgin Mary. Half of these have never been properly edited, let alone printed in modern form. There is no question that Paracelsus thought long and hard about Christianity, and by styling himself a professor of theology (without, it seems, any official academic sanction) he implies that he regarded this component of his output to be the equal of his medical and chemical theories. That his role in the history of science and medicine has received far more attention than his theological oeuvre is, however, understandable and probably apt, for it cannot be said that he had much influence even on the religious debates of his day. In theology he never aspired to be a Luther, and that would in any case have been a futile aspiration for one so lacking in political acumen or the ability to foster disciples. — Philip Ball

In the beginning, I aspired just to make a comfortable living in acting. I still feel the same - it's just that my standards have gone up, so my comfort level is higher as well. — Michael Kelly

I aspired to be the better me of my future. — Toba Beta

If you've ever had a dream or goal that you've aspired to accomplish, never give up on it. If you have the perseverance and determination to follow your passion, then you can see it come into fruition. Surround yourself with positive people, keep your eyes on the prize and big doors will open. Be ready to step into them because once you do, there's no turning back. — LaChelle Weaver

As kids we didn't complain about being poor; we talked about how rich we were going to be and made moves to get the lifestyle we aspired to by any means we could. And as soon as we had a little money, we were eager to show it. — Jay-Z

He looked at her. She was pretty still, with thick hair and soft eyes, and she moved so gracefully that it almost seemed as though she were gliding. He'd seen beautiful women before, though, women who caught his eye, but to his mind, they usually lacked the traits he found most desirable. Traits like intelligence, confidence, strength of spirit, passion, traits that inspired others to greatness, traits he aspired to himself. — Nicholas Sparks

It's never too late to be, who you always aspired to be. — Louise Hall