Motivational Quotes

Ambition

The passion of self-aggrandizement is persistent but plastic; it will never disappear from a vigorous mind, but may become morally higher by attaching itself to a larger conception of what constitutes the self.

- Cooley, Charles Horton

Best Quotes about Ambition

Keep your feet on the ground, but let your heart soar as high as it will. Refuse to be average or to surrender to the chill of your spiritual environment. [The Root Of The Righteous]

Tozer, A. W.

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

A life spent in constant labor is a life wasted, save a man be such a fool as to regard a fulsome obituary notice as ample reward.

Nathan, George Jean

Ambition is the last refuge of failure.

Wilde, Oscar

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

Lao-Tzu

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.

Dali, Salvador

Keep away from small people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Twain, Mark

'Tis not what man does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

Browning, Robert

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

Browning, Robert

10.

It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

Eliot, George

11.

Hasty climbers have sudden falls.

Proverb, Italian

12.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

Danielson, C. Archie

13.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.

Quinet, Edgar

14.

Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.

Otway, Thomas

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.

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

17.

I too must attempt a way by which I can raise myself above the ground, and soar triumphant through the lips of men.

Virgil

18.

Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.

Lilly, William

19.

When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.

Kaunda, Kenneth

20.

Ambition if it feeds at all, does so on the ambition of others.

Sontag, Susan

21.

A slave has but one master. An ambition man, has as many as there are people who helped him get his fortune.

La Bruyere, Jean De

22.

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.

Scott, Sir Walter

23.

If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.

Miller, Henry

24.

Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Bierce, Ambrose

25.

Big results require big ambitions.

Champy, James

26.

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.

Lubbock, Sir John

27.

Ambition -- it is the last infirmity of noble minds.

Barrie, Sir James M.

28.

I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build.

Rockefeller, John D.

29.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

Swift, Jonathan

30.

We grow small trying to be great.

Jones, Eli Stanley

31.

The person who starts out simply with the idea of getting rich won't succeed; you must have a larger ambition. There is no mystery in business success. If you do each day's task successfully, and stay faithfully within these natural operations of commercial laws which I talk so much about, and keep your head clear, you will come out all right.

Rockefeller, John D.

32.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

Browning, Robert

33.

Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve.Most people's sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money.

Bardwick, Judith M.

34.

Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals.

Denham, Sir John

35.

Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.

Franklin, Benjamin

36.

Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.

Hoffer, Eric

37.

Every child has great ambitions. As he grows, he is bombarded by negative suggestions -- you can't do this; you can't do that; be careful; look for security, and so on. Year by year, he experiences the realities of life, and his ambitions fade away. Figuratively speaking, most children die by the time they reach their adulthood.

Sinha, Shall

38.

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.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

39.

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

Grossart, Angus

40.

The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.

Casson, Herbert N.

41.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Pope, Alexander

42.

Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.