Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Lowliness
Lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber upward turns his face:
But when he once attains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
Shakespeare.—Julius Cæsar, Act II. Scene 1. (Brutus to Lucius.)
Fool that I was! upon my eagle’s wings
I bore this wren, till I was tir’d with soaring,
And now he mounts above me.
Dryden.—All for Love, Act II. Scene 1.