ambition

1.

To survive there, you need the ambition of a Latin-American revolutionary, the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony.

- Burke, Billie

2.

The Devil beget darkness; darkness beget ignorance; ignorance beget error and his brethren; error beget free-will and presumption; free-will beget works; works beget forgetfulness of God; forgetfulness beget transgression; transgression beget superstition; superstition beget satisfaction; satisfaction beget the mass-offering; the mass-offering beget the priest; the priest beget unbelief; unbelief beget hypocrisy; hypocrisy beget traffic in offerings for gain; traffic in offerings for gain beget Purgatory; Purgatory beget the annual solemn vigils; the annual vigils beget church-livings; church-livings beget avarice; avarice beget swelling superfluity; swelling superfluity beget fulness; fulness beget rage; rage beget license; license beget empire and domination; domination beget pomp; pomp beget ambition; ambition beget simony; simony beget the pope and his brethren, about the time of the Babylonish captivity.

- Luther, Martin

3.

O, now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content! Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue! O, farewell! Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war! And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!

- William Shakespeare

4.

He who tip-toes cannot stand; he who strides cannot walk.

- Lao-Tzu

5.

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.

- Cook, James R.

6.

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.

- Hepburn, Katharine

7.

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

- Johnson, Samuel

8.

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.

- Hume, David

9.

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

- Chesterfield, Lord

10.

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.

- Johnson, Samuel

11.

Ambition is not what man does... but what man would do.

- Browning, Robert

12.

To know your place is a good idea in politics. That is not to say stay in your place or hang on to your place, because ambition or boredom may dictate upward or downward mobility, but a sense of place -- a feel for one's own position in the control room -- is useful in gauging what you should try to do.

- Safire, William

13.

Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition; but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.

- Addison, Joseph

14.

Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams -- Joseph interpreting for Pharaoh. Like the movies, they infect the routine futility of our days with purposeful adventure. Their weapons are our weaknesses: fear, ambition, illness, pride, selfishness, desire, ignorance. And these weapons must be kept as bright as a sword.

- White, Elwyn Brooks

15.

Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.

- Walpole, Horace

16.

You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.

- Voltaire

17.

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.

- English, Thomas Dunn

18.

Ambition is putting a ladder against the sky.

- American Proverb

19.

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.

- Elvis Presley

20.

A generation which has passed through the shop has absorbed standards and ambitions which are not of those of spaciousness, and cannot get away from them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they naturally have in view the greatest possible benefit, profit and that end of the stuff that will make the best show.

- Herzen, Alexander