Literary notes about ultimate (AI summary)
In literature, "ultimate" frequently serves to signal an endpoint or a distilled essence of experience. It is used to denote the final outcome of actions or a character’s fate—as in a decision leading to final ruin ([1]) or the predicted culmination of success ([2], [3]). At the same time, the term encapsulates fundamental principles that underpin consciousness or moral order; authors speak of the ultimate modes of mind ([4]) and describe abstract, even transcendent, goals ([5], [6], [7]). Whether indicating a fixed terminus or the highest degree of an idea—from the concrete limits of power ([8]) to metaphysical truths ([9], [10])—"ultimate" imbues narratives with a sense of decisive, sometimes provocative finality ([11], [12]).
- Therefore, the duke erred in his choice, and it was the cause of his ultimate ruin.
— from The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - Great tenacity of purpose is the only thing that will carry you over the hard places which appear in every career to ultimate triumph.
— from Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden - Ultimate success came with the development of loudspeakers on tank mounts.
— from Psychological Warfare by Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger - Knowledge, feeling, desire, these are the three ultimate modes of consciousness, of which the second has not yet been described.
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant - This ultimate goal of the present dispensation in time is similarly stated in several passages.
— from St. Paul's Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon by J. B. Lightfoot - It has been assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of all Poetry is Truth.
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - All other ends are relative to this good, since they are all pursued only for the sake of good; it is good which is the sole ultimate end.
— from The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius - In a family, as in a state, some one person must be the ultimate ruler.
— from The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill - The Ultimate Ground of the Universe is the Supreme Spirit .
— from Know the Truth: A Critique on the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation by Jesse Henry Jones - His poetry, without ceasing to be a fiction in its method and ideality, would be an ultimate truth in its practical scope.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - This is the final blessedness, this the ultimate consummation, the unending end.
— from The City of God, Volume II by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine - This seems to be the true analysis of Berkeley's argument, and the ultimate fallacy upon which it rests.
— from The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell
