quote · Source-linked selection
'T is a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend.
'T is a common proof, That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; But when he once attains the upmost round, He then unto the ladder turns his back, Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees By which he did ascend.
Approximate author period: c. 1590 AD · renaissance
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- Author or tradition
- William Shakespeare
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin. - Historical period
- Approximate author period: c. 1590 AD · renaissance
author lifetime midpoint
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken. - Recorded source
- Familiar Quotations, ninth edition (1905 printing) (1905 AD)
Julius Cæsar. Act ii. Sc. 1.
A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.
The voice behind the words.
Listed in the author section of Bartlett’s ninth-edition anthology, in the linked 1905 printing. Dates reflect that historical edition and may differ from modern scholarship.
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