quotations about ambition
Ambition is the ecclesiastical lust.
DANIEL NOONAN
The Passion of Fulton Sheen
Selfish ambition is idolatry and self-worship.
DAN DUMAS
Live Smart: Preparing for the Future God Wants for You
Never permit restless ambition. Whenever you feel the force of ambition, direct your mind at once in a calm, determined manner upon that which you really want to accomplish in life. Make this a daily practice, and you will steadily train all your faculties and powers not only to work for the realization of that ambition, but become more and more efficient in that direction.
CHRISTIAN LARSON
Your Forces and How to Use Them
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
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
JAMES MADISON
The Federalist, Feb. 6, 1788
A man without ambition is worse than dough that has no yeast in it to raise it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
Ambitious princes value inherited kingdoms not so much as conquered provinces.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
They that soar too high, often fall hard.
WILLIAM PENN
Some Fruits of Solitude
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
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
Never doubt what small men will do for great power.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI
The Windup Girl
Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.
ELVIS PRESLEY
attributed, "The many faces of ambition -- is it a virtue or vice?", The Wichita Eagle, February 14, 2016
Few are more unhappy than those who have great ambition, but little energy to urge it into activity.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
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 "lucifer" applied to a barrel of gunpowder, the explosion of which, where it succeeds in blowing one man into a niche, dashes twenty to atoms.
CHARLES WILLIAM DAY
The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos
The ambitious sacrifices all to what he terms honor, as the miser all to money.
JOHANN KASPAR LAVATER
Aphorisms on Man
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
"Of Personal Merit", Les Caractères
I blame Alexis Carrington and JR Ewing. Then again, Gordon Gecko didn't help matters. The deliciously awful main characters of 1980's television shows such as Dynasty and Dallas, and films such as Wall Street, came to personify the idea that ambition is a dirty word, a short-hand way of describing ruthless, selfish, amoral people mercilessly trampling over each other in their efforts to seize power, money, status or all three.... And over the years the image has stuck. Indeed even the words used to describe ambition are harsh -- raw, naked, burning ambition anyone? The problem is that this cartoon image of ambition is not what true ambition is about at all. In reality, ambition is simply the desire to make the most of your potential to achieve something special.
RACHEL BRIDGE
"Why Ambition Should No Longer Be a Dirty Word", Huffington Post, February 26, 2016
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