Quotes about ambition

Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve. Most people's sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money.

— Judith M. Bardwick

Ambition -- it is the last infirmity of noble minds.

— Sir James M. Barrie

All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.

— Henry Ward Beecher

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

— Ambrose Bierce

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

— Napoleon Bonaparte

What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me.

— Robert Browning

Tis not what man does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

— Robert Browning

Ambition is not what man does... but what man would do.

— Robert Browning

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

— Robert Browning

The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.

— Jean De La Bruyere

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

— Edmund Burke

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.

— Robert Burton

He who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.

— Lord Byron

As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition's hands.

— Lord Byron

The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.

— Herbert N. Casson

Big results require big ambitions.

— James Champy

When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

— Marcus T. Cicero

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

— Marcus T. Cicero

Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.

— Charles Caleb Colton

A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

— Joseph Conrad

I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go.

— James R. Cook

The passion of self-aggrandizement is persistent but plastic; it will never disappear from a vigorous mind, but may become morally higher by attaching itself to a larger conception of what constitutes the self.

— Charles Horton Cooley

I want to work with the top people, because only they have the courage and the confidence and the risk-seeking profile that you need.

— Laurel Cutler

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

At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

— Salvador Dali

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

— C. Archie Danielson

Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals.

— Sir John Denham

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

— George Eliot

Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it. The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss. As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.

— Thomas Dunn English

Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.

— Benjamin Franklin

The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.

— Oliver Goldsmith

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

— Angus Grossart

Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.

— Eric Hoffer

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

— Horace

I shall strike the stars with my unlifted head.

— Horace

Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions.

— David Hume

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Samuel Johnson

We grow small trying to be great.

— Eli Stanley Jones

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

— Joseph Joubert

When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.

— Kenneth Kaunda

Ambition never comes to an end.

— Yoshida Kenko

A slave has but one master. An ambitious man, has as many as there are people who helped him get his fortune.

— Jean De La Bruyere

He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.

— Lao-Tzu

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

— William Lilly

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition.

— Abraham Lincoln

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime . Not failure, but low aim is crime.

— James Russell Lowell

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

— Sir John Lubbock

Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

— Niccolo Machiavelli

Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

— Christopher Marlowe

If you have a great ambition, take as big a step as possible in the direction of fulfilling it. The step may only be a tiny one, but trust that it may be the largest one possible for now.

— Mildred Mcafee

Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.

— Charlie McCarthy

If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.

— Henry Miller

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.

— George Jean Nathan

Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.

— Thomas Otway

The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.

— William Penn

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

— Alexander Pope

When ambition ends, happiness begins.

— Hungarian Proverb

Hasty climbers have sudden falls.

— Italian Proverb

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

— Edgar Quinet

I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build.

— John D. Rockefeller

The person who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won't succeed; you must have a larger ambition. There is no mystery in business success. If you do each day's task successfully, and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about, and keep your head clear, you will come out all right.

— John D. Rockefeller

Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

— Kenny Rogers

It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.

— Sallust

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.

— Sir Walter Scott

It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.

— Seneca

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

— William Shakespeare

As he was valiant, I honor him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.

— William Shakespeare

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

— William Shakespeare

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.

— Sir Philip Sidney

Every child has great ambitions. As he grows, he is bombarded by negative suggestions -- you can't do this; you can't do that; be careful; look for security, and so on. Year by year, he experiences the realities of life, and his ambitions fade away. Figuratively speaking, most children die by the time they reach their adulthood.

— Shall Sinha

Ambition if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others.

— Susan Sontag

Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme; to be sublimely great or to be nothing.

— Robert Southey

There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves.

— Arthur P. Stanley

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

— Jonathan Swift

If you wish to reach the highest, begin at the lowest.

— Publilius Syrus

Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.

— Sir Henry Taylor

So many worlds, so much to do, so little done, such things to be.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment. [The Root Of The Righteous]

— A. W. Tozer

Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

— Mark Twain

Where ambition ends happiness begins.

— Source Unknown

I too must attempt a way by which I can raise myself above the ground, and soar triumphant through the lips of men.

— Virgil

Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.

— Horace Walpole

Ambition is the last refuge of failure.

— Oscar Wilde

You can be whoever you want to be. Dream Plan and Take Action and Keep God First

— BPBEE

If you're ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.

— Jonathan Winters

Statesmen are grocers, ambitious clowns.

— Dejan Stojanovic

If unjustified, ambition kills value, eats its own life, kills someone else's desire to fly, cuts their wings, sucks their air.

— Dejan Stojanovic

There is only as much space, only as much time, only as much desire, only as many words, only as many pages, only as much ink to accept all of us at light-speed hurrying into the Promised Land of oblivion that is waiting for us sooner or later.

— Dejan Stojanovic

Ambition's true reward can only be gotten without ambition's trade.

— Leslie Miklosy

You don’t need a virtual image of your destination; as you are dreaming, you shall be gleaming

— Mokgehle William wisbar

Changing the game plan is changing the game outcome, you have to love change

— Mokgehle William wisbar