AMBITION QUOTES
quotations about ambition
I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself and falls on the other.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Macbeth
A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortune.
BRUYERE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Take away ambition and vanity, and where will be your heroes and patriots?
SENECA
attributed, Day's Collacon
All ambition owes its attractiveness to effort and desire rather than success. We find the object to which we attached so much value is in itself of little value whatever; it is our effort to obtain it which envalues it.
ANTHONY LISLE
The Westminster Review, Jan. 1914
Ambition, madam, is a great man's madness.
JOHN WEBSTER
The Duchess of Malfi
To reach the height of our ambition is like trying to reach the rainbow; as we advance, it recedes.
W. T. BURKE
attributed, Day's Collacon
A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm--it can creep, but it cannot fly.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Ambition", Essays
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?
ROBERT BROWNING
"Andrea del Sarto"
Ambition is to the mind what the cap is to the falcon; it blinds us first, and then compels us to tower, by reason of our blindness. But alas, when we are at the summit of a vain ambition, we are also at the depth of real misery. We are placed where time cannot improve, but must impair us; where chance and change cannot befriend, but may betray us; in short, by attaining all we wish, and gaining all we want, we have only reached a pinnacle where we have nothing to hope, but everything to fear.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of Fortune.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
Ambition is therefore liable to failure and can even destroy the ambitious one. Only the ambition that falls in line with God's drawnout plan becomes fruitful.
KINGSTONE NGWIRA
Journals of Regulatory Frame Work in Malawi
I love the smell of fresh ambition in the morning.
ANONYMOUS
Blood only serves to wash ambition's hands.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Driftwood
Lo, as the last proud empire mourns her fall, Ambition weeps that she hath conquered--all, lifts up her hands, that earth can never feel, and pants for other worlds to conquer still.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN
"Ambition's Climax"
Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.
QUINTILIAN
attributed, Day's Collacon
The greatest evil that fortune can bring to men is to endow them with feeble resources and yet to make them ambitious.
LUC DE CLAPIERS, MARQUIS DE VAUVENARGUES
Reflections and Maxims
We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.
BARACK OBAMA
Daily Southtown, Feb. 19, 2005
My ambition is handicapped by my laziness.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Factotum