best quotations about
Ambition |
| 49 quotes | Visits: 2,635 |
Quotations
 | Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. — John Steinbeck, 1902-1968, American writer, Nobel 1962 16 likes |
 | You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec, 1906-1966, Polish author of maxims 7 likes |
 | Ambition is enthusiasm with a purpose. — Frank Tyger, 1929-2011, American cartoonist 6 likes |
 | The slave has only one master. The ambitious man has as masters all those who can contribute to his rise. — Jean de La Bruyère, 1645-1696, French writer 6 likes |
 | Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. — Salvador Dali, 1904-1989, Spanish painter 6 likes |
 | The depth of darkness to which you can descend and still live is an exact measure of the height to which you can aspire to reach. — Pliny the Elder, 23-79 μ.X., Roman natural philosopher 5 likes |
| 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, 1904-1989, Spanish painter 5 likes |
 | The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. — H.L. Mencken, 1880-1956, American columnist & cultural critic 4 likes |
 | One lives in the hope of becoming a memory. — Antonio Porchia, 1885-1968, Italian-Argentinian poet 4 likes |
 | Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground. — Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919, American President [1901-1909] 4 likes |
 | Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy. — Dwight Eisenhower, 1890-1969, American general & President 4 likes |
 | 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, 1905-1983, Hungarian-British writer 4 likes |
 | I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful. — Marilyn Monroe, 1926-1962, American actress 4 likes |
 | Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. — Steve Jobs, 1955-2011, American businessman (ending comment in the Stanford Commencement in 2005) 3 likes |
 | I had rather be the first man in the village than the second man in Rome. — Julius Caesar, 100-44 BC, Roman general & Consul 3 likes |
 | In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator. — Jean Cocteau, 1889-1963, French artist 3 likes |
 | Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. — Rumi, 1207-1273, Persian mystic & poet 3 likes |
 | Ambition is the death of thought. — Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889-1951, Austrian philosopher 3 likes |
 | You have to think anyway, so why not think big? — Donald Trump, 1946-, President of the USA 2 likes |
| If you do not raise your eyes you will think that you are the highest point. — Antonio Porchia, 1885-1968, Italian-Argentinian poet 2 likes |
 | Nothing great is done without great men, and they are great because they wanted it. — Charles de Gaulle, 1890-1970, French President 2 likes |
 | Ambition can creep as well as soar. — Edmund Burke, 1729-1797, British statesman & philosopher 2 likes |
 | The melancholy thing in our public life is the insane desire to get higher. — Rutherford B. Hayes, 1822-1893, American President [1877-1881] 2 likes |
 | Though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues. — Quintilian, 35-96 AD, Roman rhetorician 2 likes |
 | Ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. — Ambrose Bierce, 1842–1914, American writer 2 likes |
 | All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition. |
| Here’s the difficulty about suicide: it is an act of ambition that can be committed only when one has passed beyond ambition. |
 | I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. |
 | What I want to leave behind me is a burnt castle. Nothing else. |
 | Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable. |
 | Ambition: a soap bubble that would like to be a little bigger when it bursts. |
| A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted, that riches, positions, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him. |
 | Beware of overconcern for money, or position, or glory. Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things. Then you will know how poor you are. |
 | Don't be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself. |
 | I have always been devoured by a terrible ambition: to please myself. — Maurice Chapelan, 1906-1992, French author of maxims & journalist |
 | One's religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success. |
 | You will never be greater than the thoughts that dominate your mind. |
 | Happiness never made anyone rich or famous. That must be why ambitious people avoid it. — Marty Rubin, 1930-1994, Canadian gay activist, author & journalist |
 | In efforts to soar above our nature, we invariably fall below it. |
 | A father is a man who expects his son to be as good a man as he meant to be. |
 | Ambition more easily takes possession of small souls than of great ones, as fire spreads to straw and not to stones, to huts and not to palaces. |
 | Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. |
 | It is admirable to die the victim of one's faith; it is sad to die the dupe of one's ambition. |
 | My ambition is handicapped by laziness. |
Latin Quotes
 | Nothing but the best is good enough. Nil satis nisi optimum. — motto of the Air Training Corps and of various schools 127 likes |
 | Thus one journeys to the stars. Sic itur ad astra. — Virgil, 70-19 BC, Roman poet (i.e. thus one reaches high) 83 likes |
Funny Quotes
 | My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening. — Alice Roosevelt Longworth, 1884-1980, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt 7 likes |
Ancient Greek
 | His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best. Ου γαρ δοκείν άριστος, αλλ’ είναι θέλει. — Aeschylus, 525-456 BC, Ancient Greek tragedian ‐ Seven against Thebes 3 likes |
