Quotes and Sayings about Ambition
"You know, I think when I reflect on it, I think there's certainly a sense of history. When you have ambitions to play this game, you want to be one of the best ever, and you want to play so well and be so effective that you want people to remember your name 100 years from now."
- Marcus Allen
(Related: History, People, Name, Now, Play, Sense, Want, Years)
"Achievement results from work realizing ambition."
- Adam Ant
(Related: Work, Achievement, Ambition, Results)
"There are so many things to take into account - your ambition, your ego, the press, the consumers. You can never be sure that you'll be on top of the pile again."
- Giorgio Armani
(Related: Ambition, Ego, Press)
"It took a deadly illness to put me eye to eye with that truth, but it is a truth that the country, caught up in its ruthless ambitions and moral decay, can learn on my dime."
- Lee Atwater
(Related: Truth, Country, Eye, Illness)
"Our bodies are shaped to bear children, and our lives are a working out of the processes of creation. All our ambitions and intelligence are beside that great elemental point."
- Saint Augustine
(Related: Intelligence, Children, Creation)
"A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions."
- Marcus Aurelius
(Related: Man, Worth)
"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."
- Marcus Aurelius
(Related: Idea, Ambition, Man)
"All I wanted to do was write - at the time, poems, and prose, too. I guess my ambition was simply to make money however I could to keep myself going in some modest way, and I didn't need much, I was unmarried at the time, no children."
- Paul Auster
(Related: Money, Time, Ambition, Children, Poems, Prose)
"Let love flow so that it cleanses the world. Then man can live in peace, instead of the state of turmoil he has created through his past ways of life, with all those material interests and earthly ambitions."
- Sai Baba
(Related: Love, Life, Peace, Man, Past, State, World)
"There is, however, another purpose to which academies contribute. When they consist of a limited number of persons, eminent for their knowledge, it becomes an object of ambition to be admitted on their list."
- Charles Babbage
(Related: Knowledge, Purpose, Ambition)
"A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them."
- Liberty Hyde Bailey
(Related: Attention, Effort, Garden, Intentions, Labor, Plants)
"A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive."
- Pearl Bailey
(Related: Love, Ambition, Blessings, Earth, Man)
"Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue."
- Hosea Ballou
(Related: Virtue, Ambition, Vice)
"I have been absolutely hag-ridden with ambition. If I could wish to have anything in the world it would be to be free of ambition."
- Tallulah Bankhead
(Related: Ambition, World)
"Ambition it is the last infirmity of noble minds."
- J. M. Barrie
(Related: Ambition)
"Ambition - it is the last infirmity of noble minds."
- James M. Barrie
(Related: Ambition)
"Beauty is the sole ambition, the exclusive goal of Taste."
- Charles Baudelaire
(Related: Beauty, Goal, Ambition, Taste)
"All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."
- Henry Ward Beecher
(Related: Mankind)
"In a couple, sometimes, one or both people have to give up their personal life, dreams and ambitions for the good of the family."
- Monica Bellucci
(Related: Dreams, Family, Life, People)
"Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping."
- A. C. Benson
(Related: Men, Ambition)
"Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead."
- Ambrose Bierce
(Related: Ambition, Desire, Enemies, Friends, Living)
"My ambition is to have beautiful encounters, not to make money."
- Juliette Binoche
(Related: Money, Ambition)
"My only ambition is to be true every moment I am living."
- Juliette Binoche
(Related: Ambition, Living)
"Religion is a means of exploitation employed by the strong against the weak; religion is a cloak of ambition, injustice and vice."
- Georges Bizet
(Related: Religion, Ambition, Exploitation, Injustice, Vice)
"I had found myself a new mission - and once more my recurring dilemma between corporate commercial needs and personal scientific ambitions was solved unexpectedly."
- James W. Black
(Related: Corporate, Mission, Needs)
"In teaching, I wanted to offer a general pharmacology course based on chemical principles, biochemical classification and mathematical modelling. In the event I achieved neither of my ambitions."
- James W. Black
(Related: Principles, Teaching)
"Maybe wanting to retire is my ambition."
- Brenda Blethyn
(Related: Ambition)
"I had a burning ambition. Otherwise, I wouldn't have accomplished it."
- Claire Bloom
(Related: Ambition)
"Ambition never is in a greater hurry that I; it merely keeps pace with circumstances and with my general way of thinking."
- Napoleon Bonaparte
(Related: Ambition, Circumstances, Thinking)
"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
(Related: Character, Ambition, May, Passion, Principles)
"My actions to promote peace, the mediation missions which I carried out during many conflicts, which very often occurred between brothers of the same country, are not driven by any ulterior motives or any calculations based on personal ambitions."
- Omar Bongo
(Related: Peace, Actions, Brothers, Calculations, Country, Motives)
"To his doctrines I owe my great and glorious ambition for the sex to which I proudly belong and whose independence I shall defend until my dying day."
- Rosa Bonheur
(Related: Sex, Ambition, Day, Dying, Independence)
"It's stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition."
- Bono
(Related: Ambition, End)
"May the same Almighty Goodness banish the accursed monster, war, from all lands, with her hated associates, rapine and insatiable ambition!"
- Daniel Boone
(Related: War, Goodness, May)
"In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it."
- Christian Nestell Bovee
(Related: Love, Successful, Ambition, Merit)
"Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."
- Bill Bradley
(Related: Success, Ambition, Persistence)
"Ambition is not what man does... but what man would do."
- Robert Browning
(Related: Ambition, Man)
"A young man without ambition is an old man waiting to be."
- Steven Brust
(Related: Ambition, Man, Old, Waiting)
"This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle."
- James L. Buckley
(Related: Ambition, Corruption, Legislators)
"Religion united its influence with those of loyalty and love, and the order of knighthood, endowed with all the sanctity and religious awe that attended the priesthood, became an object of ambition to the greatest sovereigns."
- Thomas Bulfinch
(Related: Religion, Love, Ambition, Influence, Loyalty, Order, Religious, United)
"Ambition can creep as well as soar."
- Edmund Burke
(Related: Ambition)
"A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment."
- Frances Burney
(Related: Ambition, Contentment, Enjoyment, Expectation, First, Mind)
"The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves."
- Robert Burton
(Related: Men, Power, Ambition, Succeed, Will)
"I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure."
- George W. Bush
(Related: Success, Failure, Hope, Ambition, Succeed, Washington)
"America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman."
- George W. Bush
(Related: Peace, America, Beliefs, Desire, Dignity, Rights, Man, Mission, Nation, Woman)
"Obscurity can be a fire of ambition in those who have stalwart souls."
- Taylor Caldwell
(Related: Ambition, Fire, Obscurity)
"To suggest that Quebecers willingly give up the chance to exercise fully their influence within the federal government would be to betray the historical role Quebec has always played in Confederation, and to undermine the legitimacy of their pride and ambitions."
- Kim Campbell
(Related: Government, Chance, Exercise, Influence, Pride)
"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom."
- Thomas Carlyle
(Related: Ambition, Boredom, Exhaustion)
"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."
- Angela Carter
(Related: Ambition, Appearance)
"The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor."
- Willa Cather
(Related: Fact)
"I didn't know then that I would never be able to leave the sounds and smells of these sights behind me, but I was fiercely conscious of one thing-my ambition."
- Emanuel Celler
(Related: Ambition)
"We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own."
- Cesar Chavez
(Related: Progress, Achievement, Aspirations, Community, Forget, Needs, Prosperity)
"If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you."
- Lord Chesterfield
(Related: Love, People, Fear, Ambition, Pity, Pride, Reason)
"Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen."
- Emile M. Cioran
(Related: Ambition, Potential)
"If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles."
- Karl Von Clausewitz
(Related: Leader, Strength, Ambition, Obstacles, Will)
"I've become a captive of my own ambitions."
- Patsy Cline
"Being non-commercial is never an ambition. Movies come together at different points for fortuitous reasons. You do them as you get the opportunity, as opposed to doing them when you choose to or design to."
- Ethan Coen
(Related: Design, Movies, Opportunity, Ambition, Being)
"All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."
- Joseph Conrad
(Related: Mankind)
"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."
- Joseph Conrad
(Related: Ambition, Man)
"Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go."
- James Cook
(Related: Ambition, Man)
"The aim of literary ambition is to demonstrate one's greatness of soul."
- Mason Cooley
(Related: Soul, Greatness, Ambition, Literary)
"The common faults of American language are an ambition of effect, a want of simplicity, and a turgid abuse of terms."
- James F. Cooper
(Related: Abuse, Ambition, American, Effect, Faults, Language, Simplicity, Want)
"Ambition aspires to descend."
- Pierre Corneille
(Related: Ambition)
"All my ambition is, I own, to profit and to please unknown; like streams supplied from springs below, which scatter blessings as they go."
- Charles Cotton
(Related: Ambition, Blessings, Profit)
"My ambition is to be happy."
- Penelope Cruz
(Related: Ambition)
"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
(Related: Soul, Ambition, Sea)
"Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings."
- Salvador Dali
(Related: Intelligence, Ambition)
"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
(Related: Age, Ambition)
"The failure of national economic policy is costing us more than jobs; it has begun to weaken that uniquely American spirit of risk-taking, large ambition, and optimism about the future. We must rally them now to bold departures that rebuild our national morale as well as our material prosperity."
- Mitch Daniels
(Related: Policy, Failure, Optimism, Ambition, American, Future, Jobs, Now, Prosperity, Risk, Risk-taking, Spirit)
"I don't particularly have any magical ambitions, but then, I never did. I just enjoyed the game."
- Paul Daniels
"One of the things I realized early in my career is that you do what you believe, in knowing that if you don't, you will never like yourself. When you compromise out of fear or ambition, it eats inside you."
- Samuel Dash
(Related: Fear, Ambition, Career, Compromise, Will)
"As a youngster, I enjoyed sport and my ambition was to be a great sportsman."
- Lynn Davies
(Related: Ambition)
"I have a few personal ambitions for the band."
- John Deacon
"Mel is nuts. He puts on a suit and a tie and acts like a normal person so people think he's okay. He's definitely out in left field. He's got the ambition of a boy."
- Dom DeLuise
(Related: People, Ambition)
"As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition too."
- Johnny Depp
(Related: Talent, Thought, Ambition, Nothing)
"If you have ambition, you might not achieve anything, but without ambition, you are almost certain not to achieve anything."
- Whitfield Diffie
(Related: Ambition)
"I'm just a ballplayer with one ambition, and that is to give all I've got to help my ball club win. I've never played any other way."
- Joe DiMaggio
(Related: Ambition, Help)
"Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit."
- Benjamin Disraeli
(Related: Men, People, Virtue, Ambition, Fortune, Merit, Moderation, Want)
"The press regularly proclaims my ambitions and my financial demands."
- Placido Domingo
(Related: Financial, Press)
"We're not all nice, and there are a lot of levels of ambition and niceness."
- Heather Donahue
(Related: Ambition)
"The big biography of Lincoln necessarily had to do so much with his political career, his ambitions, his accomplishments in public, with less time to spend on his private life, his inner life, and I thought this might be a way of getting at that."
- David Herbert Donald
(Related: Time, Life, Thought, Accomplishments, Biography, Career, Public)
"But as a young kid, I never did, really have an ambition to be a farmer. I never thought, gee, I would like to farm, and I want to raise these crops. I didn't quite know what I wanted to do."
- Sam Donaldson
(Related: Thought, Ambition, Want)
"To become Christ-like is the only thing in the whole world worth caring for, the thing before which every ambition of man is folly and all lower achievement vain."
- Henry Drummond
(Related: Achievement, Ambition, Caring, Christ, Folly, Man, World, Worth)
"There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher."
- Henry Van Dyke
(Related: Ambition, Mankind, World)
"Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be."
- Bob Dylan
(Related: Order)
"Ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle you arrive in."
- William Eardley IV
(Related: Success, Ambition, Persistence)
"The movies that are made more thoughtfully or made or with more ambition often get just get drowned out by the noise."
- Roger Ebert
(Related: Movies, Ambition)
"In college, I got interested in news because the world was coming apart. The civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women's right movement. That focused my radio ambitions toward news."
- Bob Edwards
(Related: Women, Civil rights, College, News, World)
"At the beginning of the 20th century, the ambition of the great painters was to make paintings that were like music, which was then considered as the noblest art."
- Brian Eno
(Related: Art, Music, Ambition, Beginning)
"Somebody ought to tell him his ambition is showing."
- Harry Essex
(Related: Ambition)
"The tragedy is that so many have ambition and so few have ability."
- William Feather
(Related: Ability, Ambition, Tragedy)
"Don't let ambition get so far ahead that it loses sight of the job at hand."
- William Feather
(Related: Ambition, Job, Sight)
"I used to think I had ambition... but now I'm not so sure. It may have been only discontent. They're easily confused."
- Rachel Field
(Related: Ambition, Discontent, May, Now)
"From the time I was very young, maybe five or six, I thought a lot about being an actress. I didn't tell my friends about my ambitions, though, especially when I got older, because I thought they would not receive them well. I never talked about what I wanted to do."
- Louise Fletcher
(Related: Time, Thought, Being, Friends)
"I didn't have any ambition to produce big mainstream popcorn movies."
- Jodie Foster
(Related: Movies, Ambition)
"I had all the usual ambition growing up. I wanted to be a writer, a musician, a hockey player. I wanted to do something that wasn't nine to five. Acting was the first thing I tried that clicked."
- Michael J. Fox
(Related: Acting, Ambition, First, Growing up, Writer)
"The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left's on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet."
- Barney Frank
(Related: Internet, Now, Reality, Right, Sense, Talk)
"The psychoanalysis of neurotics has taught us to recognize the intimate connection between wetting the bed and the character trait of ambition."
- Sigmund Freud
(Related: Character, Ambition, Bed, Connection, Psychoanalysis)
"I'm not totally altruistic. I've always had great career ambitions. But it has to come out in an organic way. If you push yourself out beyond where you are supposed to be, there's this pressure."
- David Friedman
(Related: Career, Pressure)
"Most minds think from A to B to G to O, or hold goals and ambitions to keep them going."
- Lynette Fromme
(Related: Goals)
"Whatever ambivalence I felt about my own career, Frankie more than made up for it with his ambition and tenacity."
- Annette Funicello
(Related: Ambition, Career, Tenacity)
"I should have been smart enough to stay happy. But my ambition ruled my life."
- Eva Gabor
(Related: Life, Ambition)
"I had this dream, and I really wanted to be a star. And I was almost a monster in the way that I was really fearless with my ambitions."
- Lady Gaga
(Related: Dream)
"I came to declare that I am a friend to Arabs, at a time when it is not easy to be friend to Arabs, because nowadays those who have ambitions and interests would not befriend Arab."
- George Galloway
(Related: Time, Friend)
"Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme; to be sublimely great or to be nothing."
- Shakti Gawain
(Related: Ambition, Extreme, Nothing)
"If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?"
- Vincent Van Gogh
(Related: Men, Ambition, Vanity, Youth)
"Before we got married, I had tremendous ambition. Once we got married and I started having children, then I just thought that that was my real life. Steve was definitely more ambitious than I."
- Eydie Gorme
(Related: Life, Thought, Ambition, Children)
"For those with ambition, reality is more of a creation than an unalterable certainty."
- Lori Guinn
(Related: Ambition, Certainty, Creation, Reality)
"I think when people talk about ambition and talking to him, it might have seemed that he wasn't ambitious."
- Alan Hansen
(Related: People, Ambition, Talk, Talking)
"It's incredible considering the public perception that he was tight fisted and he was more than prudent, and lacked ambition to take Tottenham to where the fans wanted them to be."
- Alan Hansen
(Related: Perception, Ambition, Fans, Public)
"My one ambition was to go to Broadway, and I never gave up on that dream."
- David Hasselhoff
(Related: Dream, Ambition)
"My one ambition is to play a hero."
- Sessue Hayakawa
(Related: Ambition, Play)
"The incentive to ambition is the love of power."
- William Hazlitt
(Related: Love, Power, Ambition)
"Whatever success I may have attained is due to the fact that since I was old enough to work at all, my ambition has never deserted me."
- Anna Held
(Related: Success, Work, Ambition, Deserted, Fact, May, Old)
"When I was young, my ambition was to be one of the people who made a difference in this world. My hope is to leave the world a little better for having been there."
- Jim Henson
(Related: People, Hope, Ambition, Difference, World)
"The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend."
- Katharine Hepburn
(Related: Boyfriend, Ambition, American, Film, Hollywood)
"Big results require big ambitions."
- Heraclitus
(Related: Results)
"What is my loftiest ambition? I've always wanted to throw an egg at an electric fan."
- Oliver Herford
(Related: Ambition)
"It would be difficult to have any unfulfilled ambitions because I don't have any ambitions. I've never been that kind of performer."
- John Hurt
"I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word."
- John Hurt
(Related: Ambition, Word)
"My biggest ambition is never to be bored. I'm not aggressive enough to strongly run after being an actress."
- Anjelica Huston
(Related: Ambition, Being)
"But we need to show that the EU can modernise itself, can adapt to the needs of its citizens, can take their views into account. That will be our ambition for the UK Presidency."
- John Hutton
(Related: Ambition, Needs, Presidency, Will)
"A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor."
- Aldous Huxley
(Related: Death, Knowledge, Belief, Ambition, Frustration, Hell, Majority, Rumor)
"Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions... Pass from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light, life and unity."
- Muhammad Iqbal
(Related: Life, Diversity, Light, Spirit, Unity)
"Men are more often bribed by their loyalties and ambitions than by money."
- Robert Jackson
(Related: Men, Money)
"Among those best known, their highest ambition is to build American homes, possess American furniture, dress in American clothes, adopt the American style of living and be American citizens."
- Sheldon Jackson
(Related: Ambition, American, Clothes, Dress, Living, Style)
"People in the U.K. cannot understand whether Blair has lost his mind or whether his ambition to be the second-most-powerful man in the world made him lose his mind."
- Bianca Jagger
(Related: People, Ambition, Man, Mind, World)
"The architecture profession has lost a lot of its integrity, especially in the USA. The general architect here has no scruples, no ambitions."
- Helmut Jahn
(Related: Architecture, Integrity, Profession)
"The preserve of ambition and folly in pursuit of illusion, or delusion."
- Derek Jarman
(Related: Ambition, Delusion, Folly, Illusion, Pursuit)
"I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Men, Ambition, Office)
"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
- Thomas Jefferson
(Related: Virtue, Ambition, Dependence, Tools)
"But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form."
- James Weldon Johnson
(Related: American, Desire, Voice)
"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
(Related: Home, Ambition, Desire, End, Labor, Result)
"A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him."
- Samuel Johnson
(Related: Ambition, Fortune, Man, Office)
"Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need."
- Ben Jonson
(Related: Ambition)
"Never let inexperience get in the way of ambition."
- Terry Josephson
(Related: Ambition)
"My mouth is full of decayed teeth and my soul of decayed ambitions."
- James Joyce
(Related: Soul)
"As the country now turns a new leaf, our ambition is to give hope to each and every Afghan."
- Hamid Karzai
(Related: Hope, Ambition, Country, Now)
"Failure is only postponed success as long as courage 'coaches' ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory."
- Herbert Kaufman
(Related: Success, Courage, Failure, Habit, Victory, Ambition, Persistence)
"Ambition never comes to an end."
- Kenneth Kaunda
(Related: Ambition, End)
"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."
- Helen Keller
(Related: Experience, Success, Soul, Character, Ambition, Quiet, Suffering)
"My ambition is peace and perfection."
- DeForest Kelley
(Related: Peace, Ambition, Perfection)
"I have no political ambitions for myself or my children."
- Joseph P. Kennedy
(Related: Children)
"I wanted to be an outstanding player, that was my ambition."
- Imran Khan
(Related: Ambition)
"A writer's ambition should be to trade a hundred contemporary readers for ten readers in ten years' time and for one reader in a hundred years' time."
- Arthur Koestler
(Related: Time, Ambition, Trade, Writer, Years)
"An once of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition."
- Michael Korda
(Related: Ambition, Hypocrisy, Worth)
"An ounce of hypocracy is worth a pound of ambition."
- Michael Korda
(Related: Ambition, Worth)
"My nomination to be Governor was not to gratify ambition."
- Lajos Kossuth
(Related: Ambition)
"I will not become a Napoleon nor an Alexander, and labour for my own ambition; but I will labour for freedom and for the moral well-being of man."
- Lajos Kossuth
(Related: Ambition, Freedom, Man, Will)
"My ambition in high school was to be a high school coach and teacher, and that's still what I do: teach."
- Mike Krzyzewski
(Related: Ambition, Coach, School)
"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy."
- Milan Kundera
(Related: Ambition, Poor, Sense)
"Ambition has but one reward for all: A little power, a little transient fame; A grave to rest in, and a fading name!"
- Walter Savage Landor
(Related: Power, Ambition, Fame, Grave, Rest, Reward)
"Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked."
- Walter Savage Landor
(Related: Ambition)
"Behold, I am become a reproach to thy holy name, by serving any ambition and the sins of others; which though I did by the persuasion of other men, yet my own conscience did cheek and upbraid me in it."
- William Laud
(Related: Men, Ambition, Conscience, Name, Persuasion)
"My job at Stanford is rather different from the ones I had held previously in that my own ambitions must take a back seat to the well-being of the students with whom I work."
- Robert B. Laughlin
(Related: Work, Job, Students)
"I see my face in the mirror, and I said, No, my ambition is not to be an actor."
- Dino De Laurentiis
(Related: Actor, Ambition)
"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
- Timothy Leary
(Related: Men, Women, Ambition)
"My ambitions were already very clearly fixed by the time I was 6 or 7."
- Joshua Lederberg
(Related: Time)
"My mother carried on and supported us; her ambition had been to write poetry and songs."
- Philip Levine
(Related: Poetry, Mother, Ambition, Songs)
"You want the book to be special, and they are not always going to be special, but at least you want that to be the ambition. So the only way that happens is if you are not pressing to write a book."
- Michael Lewis
(Related: Ambition, Want)
"Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem."
- Abraham Lincoln
(Related: Men, Ambition, Being, Man)
"I've always been most interested in the politics of everyday life: your relation to whatever you're doing, or what your ambitions are, where you live, where you find yourself in the social hierarchy."
- Richard Linklater
(Related: Politics)
"It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me."
- Franz Liszt
(Related: Work, Ambition)
"Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Related: People, Succeed)
"Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(Related: Ambition, Passion)
"Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others."
- Niccolo Machiavelli
(Related: Men, Ambition, First)
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."
- James Madison
(Related: Ambition)
"God like Us suffers the ambition to make a destiny more extraordinary than was conceived for Him, yes God is like Me, only more so."
- Norman Mailer
(Related: God, Ambition, Destiny)
"I did not want to be depressed by the gap existing between my weakness and my ambition."
- Ella Maillart
(Related: Ambition, Want, Weakness)
"Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world."
- Orison Swett Marden
(Related: Power, Habit, Ambition, Nothing, Will, World)
"Me only have one ambition, y'know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together - black, white, Chinese, everyone - that's all."
- Bob Marley
(Related: Ambition, Mankind)
"Independence is not a whim or an ambition. It is the necessary condition of our survival as an ethnic group."
- Aslan Maskhadov
(Related: Survival, Ambition, Independence, Whim)
"Ambition, in a private man is a vice, is in a prince the virtue."
- Philip Massinger
(Related: Virtue, Ambition, Man, Vice)
"I wanted to be a doctor at one point and I also wanted to be a pilot. I think if you grow up in a dodgy area, reality often beats down those ambitions as you get older. But with me that never really happened."
- James McAvoy
(Related: Reality)
"His ambition is to be the spider in the World Wide Web."
- John McCarthy
(Related: Ambition, World)
"Do not let your grand ambitions stand in the way of small but meaningful accomplishments."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Accomplishments)
"Do not let your ambitions become a sanctuary for your failures."
- Bryant H. McGill
"Ambition is not what a man would do, but what a man does, for ambition without action is fantasy."
- Bryant H. McGill
(Related: Action, Ambition, Fantasy, Man)
"When ambition ends, happiness begins."
- Thomas Merton
(Related: Happiness, Ambition)
"Ambition can be a disease, and it feeds on itself."
- Rebecca Miller
(Related: Ambition, Disease)
"A slave has but one master. An ambition man, has as many as there are people who helped him get his fortune."
- Wilson Mizner
(Related: People, Ambition, Fortune, Man)
"Ambition is not a vice of little people."
- Michel de Montaigne
(Related: People, Ambition, Vice)
"I have ambitions to do a Broadway record one of these days and get in the studio with like, a real orchestra. I'm a big musical theatre geek."
- Mandy Moore
(Related: Theatre)
"My ambition when I started out was to play two or three gigs a week. And that's what I'm doing."
- Van Morrison
(Related: Ambition, Play)
"If it awakens in us as a whole how important that is - the theme of how conquest and ambition are meaningless without contribution - I think then as a society we're in better shape. I hope people are inspired to be the best."
- Rob Morrow
(Related: Society, People, Hope, Ambition, Conquest)
"The great corporations of this country were not founded by ordinary people. They were founded by people with extraordinary intelligence, ambition, and aggressiveness."
- Daniel P. Moynihan
(Related: Intelligence, People, Ambition, Corporations, Country)
"Nobility of spirit has more to do with simplicity than ostentation, wisdom rather than wealth, commitment rather than ambition."
- Riccardo Muti
(Related: Wisdom, Wealth, Ambition, Commitment, Nobility, Ostentation, Simplicity, Spirit)
"The longing for peace is rooted in the hearts of all men. But the striving, which at present has become so insistent, cannot lay claim to such an ambition as leading the way to eternal peace, or solving all disputes among nations."
- Alva Myrdal
(Related: Peace, Men, Ambition, Leading, Longing, Nations, Present)
"My ambition is to do a good job. I never plan anything."
- Ilie Nastase
(Related: Ambition, Job)
"I can't sing. Definitely no ambition in that area."
- Corin Nemec
(Related: Ambition)
"Lincoln's stature and strength, his intelligence and ambition - in short, all the elements which gave him popularity among men in New Salem, rendered him equally attractive to the fair sex of that village."
- John George Nicolay
(Related: Intelligence, Men, Sex, Strength, Ambition, Popularity)
"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Ambition)
"The aphorism in which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of "eternity"; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book - what everyone else does not say in a book."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
(Related: Ambition, First)
"My ambition was to stop waiting tables. That was how I measured success: finally, I was able to stop waiting tables, and I was able to pay the rent, and that was by being a stand-up comic. Not a very good stand-up comic, but good enough to make a living."
- Graham Norton
(Related: Ambition, Being, Living, Waiting)
"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
(Related: Work, People, Ambition, Clothes, Fancy, Potential, Poverty, Want)
"Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential."
- Barack Obama
(Related: Life, Ambition, Potential, Poverty)
"Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment."
- Thomas Otway
(Related: Ambition, Enjoyment, Lust)
"Ambition may be defined as the willingness to receive any number of hits on the nose."
- Wilfred Owen
(Related: Ambition, May)
"All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition."
- Cesare Pavese
(Related: Inferiority, Ambition, Sense)
"Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace."
- Petrarch
(Related: Peace, Anger, Ambition, Enemies, Envy, Pride)
"There's no secret about my ambition, I do not want to go into the House of Commons. My only real political interest is in London and if one day I'm in a position to run for mayor, then terrific."
- Trevor Phillips
(Related: Ambition, Day, Interest, London, Want)
"I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build."
- Eden Phillpotts
(Related: Money, Goal, Ambition, Fortune)
"Money is not everything. My ambition was football itself, not the money I'd make from it. If that brings me and my family a more comfortable lifestyle, then that's fine. But I don't spend my time between games and training sessions thinking about figures."
- Alessandro Del Piero
(Related: Family, Money, Time, Ambition, Football, Games, Thinking, Training)
"The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government."
- James K. Polk
(Related: Government, Fear, Ambition, Military, Nothing, World)
"The same ambition can destroy or save, and make a patriot as it makes a knave."
- Alexander Pope
(Related: Ambition, Knave)
"Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine."
- Elvis Presley
(Related: Dream, Ambition)
"Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues."
- Marcus Fabius Quintilian
(Related: Ambition, Vice)
"Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times the cause of virtues."
- Quintilian
(Related: Ambition, Cause, Vice)
"Do you have any ambitions outside racing? My main ambition at the moment, whether inside or outside racing, is to become Formula 1 World Champion."
- Kimi Raikkonen
(Related: Ambition, Formula, Racing, World)
"I think back and marvel that my ambitions were so small."
- Helen Reddy
"If you tell people your ambitions, they usually laugh at you. When I told my girlfriends when I was 12 that I was going to Hollywood, they all laughed. And here I am!"
- Helen Reddy
(Related: People, Girlfriends, Hollywood)
"I have two ambitions in life: one is to drink every pub dry, the other is to sleep with every woman on earth."
- Oliver Reed
(Related: Earth, Sleep, Woman)
"What likelihood is there of corrupting a man who has no ambition?"
- Samuel Richardson
(Related: Ambition, Man)
"Drugs are the enemies of ambition and hope - and when we fight against drugs we are fighting for the future."
- Bob Riley
(Related: Hope, Ambition, Drugs, Enemies, Fight, Fighting, Future)
"Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and the most honorable adventure."
- Pat Riley
(Related: Life, Men, Politics, Adventure, Ambition, Career, Public)
"My ambition is to go back to Spurs and Rangers in some capacity and give something back that they gave to me."
- Graham Roberts
(Related: Ambition)
"What seems to be generosity is often no more than disguised ambition, which overlooks a small interest in order to secure a great one."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Ambition, Generosity, Interest, Order)
"Love often leads on to ambition, but seldom does one return from ambition to love."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Love, Ambition)
"Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Ambition, Lying, Religious, Respect, Word)
"Men often pass from love to ambition, but they seldom come back again from ambition to love."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Love, Men, Ambition)
"Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it."
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
(Related: Soul, Ambition, Moderation)
"I really never had any ambitions to be a standup comic. I was talked into it by guys that I used to work out with."
- Joe Rogan
(Related: Work)
"Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable."
- Eleanor Roosevelt
(Related: Ambition, Merit)
"We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: Power, Wealth, Ability, Ambition, Appetite, Security)
"In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people."
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
(Related: People, Progress, Nation)
"Human nature must have come much nearer perfection than it is now, or will be in many generations, to exclude from such a control prejudice, selfishness, ambition, and injustice."
- Elihu Root
(Related: Nature, Control, Ambition, Generations, Human nature, Injustice, Now, Perfection, Prejudice, Selfishness, Will)
"Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition."
- John Ruskin
(Related: Work, Ambition)
"Lust is to the other passions what the nervous fluid is to life; it supports them all, lends strength to them all ambition, cruelty, avarice, revenge, are all founded on lust."
- Marquis de Sade
(Related: Life, Strength, Ambition, Cruelty, Lust, Revenge)
"So they've actually - it's not that her character is a singer, but she had ambition to do that at an earlier time in her life. So I've actually sung two or three times now on the show."
- Katey Sagal
(Related: Time, Life, Character, Ambition, Now)
"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."
- Carl Sagan
(Related: Ambition, Harmony, Universe)
"Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue."
- Sallust
(Related: Men, Thought, Ambition, Tongue)
"Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude."
- Sallust
(Related: Gratitude, Ambition, Blood)
"Things will be very bad for Latin America. You only have to consider the ambitions and the doctrines of the empire, which regards this region as its backyard."
- Jose Saramago
(Related: America, Will)
"The United States must also continue to push the United Nations Security Council for strong action to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. In the meantime, it is our job to take meaningful steps to eliminate the threats posed by Iran."
- Allyson Schwartz
(Related: Action, Job, Nations, Security, states, United)
"That which is given with pride and ostentation is rather an ambition than a bounty."
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(Related: Ambition, Ostentation, Pride)
"Ambition should be made of sterner stuff."
- William Shakespeare
(Related: Ambition)
"My secret ambition was always to provide music for animation films: something with an Indian theme, either a fairy tale or mythological tale or on the Krishna theme. I still have a very deep desire, but these sorts of chances don't always come."
- Ravi Shankar
(Related: Music, Ambition, Animation, Deep, Desire)
"I have the desire to work as an actress, but I have no ambition to be a star."
- Ally Sheedy
(Related: Work, Ambition, Desire)
"There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different."
- Alfred P. Sloan
(Related: Courage, Ambition, Obstacles)
"Great ambition, the desire of real superiority, of leading and directing, seems to be altogether peculiar to man, and speech is the great instrument of ambition."
- Adam Smith
(Related: Superiority, Ambition, Desire, Leading, Man, Speech)
"The experience awakened 'my tremendous musical ambition, which has never subsided to this day."
- Georg Solti
(Related: Experience, Ambition, Day)
"My mother wanted me off her hands. She was a working woman. She designed clothes, and she was a celebrity collector. It's my mother's ambition to be a celebrity."
- Stephen Sondheim
(Related: Mother, Ambition, Celebrity, Clothes, Woman)
"Ambition, if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others."
- Susan Sontag
(Related: Ambition)
"The failure of women to produce genius of the first rank in most of the supreme forms of human effort has been used to block the way of all women of talent and ambition for intellectual achievement."
- Anna Garlin Spencer
(Related: Women, Talent, Genius, Achievement, Failure, Ambition, Effort, First, Rank)
"Ambition is the immoderate desire for power."
- Baruch Spinoza
(Related: Power, Ambition, Desire)
"It's okay to have personal ambitions, but you have to take someone with you."
- Roger Staubach
"Time is the only critic without ambition."
- John Steinbeck
(Related: Time, Ambition)
"It was under a solemn consciousness of the dangers from ecclesiastical ambition, the bigotry of spiritual pride, and the intolerance of sects... that is was deemed advisable to exclude from the national government all power to act upon the subject."
- Joseph Story
(Related: Government, Power, Act, Ambition, Bigotry, Consciousness, Intolerance, Pride, Spiritual)
"Trusting in Christ, we may boldly join in the combat, and enlist ourselves among that disinterested band, who fight not for human ambition, or human praise, but for the honour of our Saviour, and the salvation of men."
- John Strachan
(Related: Men, Ambition, Christ, Fight, May, Praise, Salvation)
"My craziest ambition is to take John Madden's job and salary."
- Michael Strahan
(Related: Ambition, Job)
"I instantly chucked my academic ambitions and began writing fiction full-time."
- Peter Straub
(Related: Fiction, Writing)
"That's my ambition: that you look at the pictures and realize what complex, fascinating, interesting people every single one of my subjects is."
- Jock Sturges
(Related: People)
"Vietnam was a lie but at least there was a political agenda. It was the domino theory. Iraq is about nothing but George Bush's ego laced with imperialist ambitions. And it was helped by your government."
- Donald Sutherland
(Related: Government, Lie, Ego, Iraq, Nothing, Theory, Vietnam)
"Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes."
- Jonathan Swift
(Related: Nature, Ambition, May)
"According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for."
- Allen Tate
(Related: Society, Desire, Doctors)
"Where there are large powers with little ambition, nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes."
- Henry Taylor
(Related: Nature, Ambition, May)
"Since we started, Chris and I had theatrical ambitions."
- Neil Tennant
"The man of petty ambition if invited to dinner will be eager to be set next his host."
- Theophrastus
(Related: Ambition, Man, Will)
"I wasn't really interested in doing television. I don't have that much ambition. My agent, Eileen Feldman, has all the ambition for me."
- Meg Tilly
(Related: Ambition, Television)
"I am still full of ambition."
- Jan Timman
(Related: Ambition)
"It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement."
- Anthony Trollope
(Related: Ambition, Cause, Earth, Improvement, World)
"I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse."
- Anthony Trollope
(Related: Ambition)
"My own ambition in the ring had always been skillful boxing, speed and defense - on the order of Mike Gibbons."
- Gene Tunney
(Related: Ambition, Boxing, Defense, Order)
"Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens."
- Lao Tzu
(Related: Ambition)
"I've never looked ahead very much in my life. I've never had any grand plan from the outset. I had no burning ambition to do what I do."
- Tracey Ullman
(Related: Life, Ambition)
"The truth is an ambition which is beyond us."
- Peter Ustinov
(Related: Truth, Ambition)
"The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us."
- Peter Ustinov
(Related: Truth, Ambition)
"The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition."
- Marquis De Vauvenargues
(Related: Men, Ambition, Evil, Fortune)
"Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs."
- Horace Walpole
(Related: Ambition)
"The U.S. along with China, Japan, South Korea and Russia has an important role to play in containing North Korea's nuclear ambitions and exerting all the influence we can possibly exert."
- Zach Wamp
(Related: Influence, Play, Russia)
"With just about every player in Australia, his whole goal and ambition is to play for Australia. That's why they're playing first class cricket. It's just a different attitude."
- Shane Warne
(Related: Attitude, Goal, Ambition, Class, Cricket, First, Play)
"The bulk of mankind have indeed, in all countries in their turn, been made the prey of ambition."
- Mercy Otis Warren
(Related: Ambition, Countries, Mankind)
"Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust."
- John Webster
(Related: Ambition, Blood, Lust)
"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
- Noah Webster
(Related: Men, War, Bible, Ambition, Crime, Injustice, Oppression, Slavery, Vice)
"One thing all stage mothers share is an overpowering ambition for their daughters."
- Lawrence Welk
(Related: Ambition, Daughters, Mothers)
"Nothing leads so straight to futility as literary ambitions without systematic knowledge."
- H. G. Wells
(Related: Knowledge, Literary, Nothing)
"Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom is the source of virtue and of fame; obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed."
- Alfred North Whitehead
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Ambition, Fame, Mankind)
"Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame, obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed."
- William Whitehead
(Related: Wisdom, Virtue, Ambition, Fame, Mankind)
"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."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: Progress, Ambition)
"Ambition is the last refuge of the failure."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: Failure, Ambition)
"Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds."
- Oscar Wilde
(Related: Growth, Ambition)
"You see, my ambition was not to confound the engineering world but simply to create a beautiful piece of art."
- Kit Williams
(Related: Art, Ambition, Engineering, World)
"I think we still believe that ambition is for boys."
- Jeanette Winterson
(Related: Ambition, Boys)
"In the future, when we get serious about executing things correctly, this thing will be very easy to do. If we find out that this technique does not work, I don't intend to step on dead bodies to achieve something because I don't have that kind of ambition. My ambition is to help people."
- Panayiotis Zavos
(Related: Work, People, Ambition, Future, Help, Will)