Religion united its influence with those of loyalty and love, and the order of knighthood, endowed with all the sanctity and religious awe that attended the priesthood, became an object of ambition to the greatest sovereigns.

The preparatory education of candidates for knighthood was long and arduous.

If no other knowledge deserves to be called useful but that which helps to enlarge our possessions or to raise our station in society, then Mythology has no claim to the appellation.

Thus we hope to teach mythology not as a study, but as a relaxation from study; to give our work the charm of a story-book, yet by means of it to impart a knowledge of an important branch of education.

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

It was not till toward the end of the thirteenth century that the prose romances began to appear.

It has, therefore, been a favorite boast of the people of Wales and Cornwall, that the original British stock flourishes in its unmixed purity only among them.

ON the decline of the Roman power, about five centuries after Christ, the countries of Northern Europe were left almost destitute of a national government.

Shields were generally made of wood, covered with leather, or some similar substance. To secure them, in some sort, from being cut through by the sword, they were surrounded with a hoop of metal.

Religion united its influence with those of loyalty and love, and the order of knighthood, endowed with all the sanctity and religious awe that attended the priesthood, became an object of ambition to the greatest sovereigns.

We thus see that the Greeks of the early ages knew little of any real people except those to the east and south of their own country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean.

Without a knowledge of mythology much of the elegant literature of our own language cannot be understood and appreciated.

Mail armor continued in general use till about the year 1300, when it was gradually supplanted by plate armor, or suits consisting of pieces or plates of solid iron, adapted to the different parts of the body.

The word Chivalry is derived from the French cheval, a horse.

The Romans held Britain from the invasion of Julius Caesar till their voluntary withdrawal from the island, A.D. 420,- that is, about five hundred years.

The earliest form in which romances appear is that of a rude kind of verse.

The word knight, which originally meant boy or servant, was particularly applied to a young man after he was admitted to the privilege of bearing arms.

The other classes of which society was composed were, first, freemen, owners of small portions of land, independent, though they sometimes voluntarily became the vassals of their more opulent neighbors, whose power was necessary for their protection.

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

The sunflower is a favorite emblem of constancy

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

Don't let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand.

The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.

Ambition can be a disease, and it feeds on itself.

My craziest ambition is to take John Madden's job and salary.

There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

People in the U.K. cannot understand whether Blair has lost his mind or whether his ambition to be the second-most-powerful man in the world made him lose his mind.

One thing all stage mothers share is an overpowering ambition for their daughters.

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

Me only have one ambition, y'know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together - black, white, Chinese, everyone - that's all.

You want the book to be special, and they are not always going to be special, but at least you want that to be the ambition. So the only way that happens is if you are not pressing to write a book.

The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

I should have been smart enough to stay happy. But my ambition ruled my life.

Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition.

God like Us suffers the ambition to make a destiny more extraordinary than was conceived for Him, yes God is like Me, only more so.

I used to think I had ambition... but now I'm not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They're easily confused.

A young man without ambition is an old man waiting to be.

The preserve of ambition and folly in pursuit of illusion, or delusion.

My ambition in high school was to be a high school coach and teacher, and that's still what I do: teach.

Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.

Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition.

My one ambition is to play a hero.

I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.

The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.

All I wanted to do was write - at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn't need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children.

The great corporations of this country were not founded by ordinary people. They were founded by people with extraordinary intelligence, ambition, and aggressiveness.