AMBITION QUOTES II

quotations about ambition

Ambition quote

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Dust Tracks on a Road

Tags: Zora Neale Hurston


I would like to think that ambition is a gift if looked at from a Christian perspective. It seems to me that God was ambitious when He made the world and all that is in it. His plans for us are ambitious. He sees us redeemed to Himself--worshipping Him in this life and for eternity. How amazing--creatures who follow the flesh can, by His power of transformation, be made into spiritual beings--saints actually. That is ambition! Was not Christ ambitious when He went to the cross? His act would redeem mankind--or those who believed on His name. It is a message that is not accepted by everyone, of course, though His ambition is for everyone to come to the Father through Him.

DIANE GLANCY

"Dreams Are Dangerous; They Uncover Your Bones", Ambition: Essays by members of The Chrysostom Society


'Tis immortality to die aspiring.

GEORGE CHAPMAN

Conspiracy of Charles, Duke of Byron

Tags: George Chapman


I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something -- the eternal "what's the use?" -- sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis.

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour

Tags: Gustave Flaubert


Ambition like a liquid ruby stains.

SAMUEL R. DELANY

Babel-17

Tags: Samuel R. Delany


Ambition can creep as well as soar.

EDMUND BURKE

Letters on a Regicide Peace

Tags: Edmund Burke


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

SUSAN SONTAG

The Benefactor

Tags: Susan Sontag


Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.

ALEXANDER POPE

Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady

Tags: Alexander Pope, angels


An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.

CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

Intuitions and Summaries of Thought

Tags: Christian Nestell Bovee, progress


It's no secret ambition bites the nails of success.

U2

"The Fly"

Tags: U2, success


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

J.M. BARRIE

The Twelve-Pound Look

Tags: J. M. Barrie


There is scarce any passion so heartily decried by moralists and satirists, as AMBITION; and yet, methinks, ambition is not a vice but in a vicious mind: in a virtuous mind it is a virtue, and will be found to take its color from the character in which it is mixed. Ambition is a desire of superiority; and a man may become superior, either by making others less or himself greater.

FULKE GREVILLE

Maxims, Characters, and Reflections

Tags: Fulke Greville, virtue


Ambition fortifies the will of man to become ruler over other men: it operates with deception, cajolery, and violence, it is the action of impurity upon impurity.

T. S. ELIOT

Murder in the Cathedral

Tags: T. S. Eliot


Ambition is the mind's immodesty.

WILLIAM DAVENANT

attributed, Day's Collacon

Tags: modesty


Without a goal, a life is nothing. Sometimes the goal becomes a man's entire life, an all-consuming passion. But once that goal is achieved, what then? Oh, poor man, what then?

BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Atreides

Tags: Brian Herbert, passion


A man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.

MARCUS AURELIUS

Meditations

Tags: Marcus Aurelius


Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen.

EMIL CIORAN

History & Utopia

Tags: Emil Cioran, madness


Of all the passions which have ever called into action the tongue, the pen, or the sword, which have overturned the throne, and shaken the altar to its base, ambition is the first and mightiest. It uses crime as a means, virtue as a mask. It respects nothing sacred.

F. A. LANGE

The History of Materialism


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

JONATHAN SWIFT

"Thoughts on Various Subjects"

Tags: Jonathan Swift


Two men are equally free from the rage of ambition; are they therefore equal in merit? Perhaps not; one may be above ambition, the other below it.

FULKE GREVILLE

Maxims, Characters and Reflections

Tags: Fulke Greville