quotations about ambition
Ambitious princes value inherited kingdoms not so much as conquered provinces.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.
BARACK OBAMA
Inaugural Address, Jan. 20. 2009
There was no more dangerous kind of madman than one who devoted a good brain and a courageous heart to unhealthy ambitions.
MICHAEL MOORCOCK
The City in the Autumn Stars
They that soar too high, often fall hard.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
With the ambitious, the failure of one expedient is the suggestion of another; but with the irresolute, defeat usually occasions abandonment of purpose.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Ambition is a Dead Sea fruit, and the greatest peril to the soul is that one is likely to get precisely what he is seeking.
EDWARD DAHLBERG
Alms for Oblivion
If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly.
ALAN LIGHTMAN
Einstein's Dreams
If your ambition is very strong, and is directed toward something definite, every action of your mind, every action of your personality, and every action of your faculties will become constructive.
CHRISTIAN LARSON
Your Forces and How to Use Them
Ambition is a germ which should produce an intense desire to make the world a better place in which to live, and should not be used for purely personal accumulations.
WALTER MATTHEWS
"Ambition", Human Life From Many Angles
Ambition is a moot point when inequality remains so entrenched in modern society.
DAWN FOSTER
Lean Out
Ambition, like a torrent, ne'er looks back.
BEN JONSON
Catiline
According to a British poll, you've only got a one in five chance of achieving your childhood career ambition. Which probably explains why you don't run into that many cowboys, princesses, or space rangers.
JAY LENO
The Tonight Show, Jun. 22, 2012
Ambition spells the difference between those who are content to let random circumstances determine their journey through life, and those who would like to have a say in where they end up.
RACHEL BRIDGE
Ambition: Why It's Good to Want More and How to Get It
We pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.
LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY
Anne of Green Gables
Ambition is the fuel that holds the many opposing fragments of my life together. Ambition is a buffer zone. A war zone. All the contradictions that are within me.
DIANE GLANCY
"Dreams Are Dangerous; They Uncover Your Bones", Ambition: Essays by members of The Chrysostom Society
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
JAMES MADISON
The Federalist, Feb. 6, 1788
I am unsettled by ambition. I am settled by ambition. I am torn with ambition. I am certain about ambition. Ambition is a blessing. Ambition is a curse.
DIANE GLANCY
"Dreams Are Dangerous; They Uncover Your Bones", Ambition: Essays by members of The Chrysostom Society
Once set fire to the train of a man's ambition, and it will never cease to burn until it reaches the glittering "Catharine Wheel" by which he has been dazzled, or, failing that, has scorched the luckless aspirant to a cinder.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
Ambition is but Avarice on stilts and masked.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
Be sure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick