Motivational Quotes

Ambition

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

- Hoffer, Eric

Best Quotes about Ambition

Big results require big ambitions.

Champy, James

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.

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.

Dahlberg, Edward

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

Joubert, Joseph

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.

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

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

Virgil

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

Hoffer, Eric

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

Sontag, Susan

10.

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

Barrie, Sir James M.

11.

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.

12.

There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves.

Stanley, Arthur P.

13.

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

Miller, Henry

14.

Hasty climbers have sudden falls.

Proverb, Italian

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

Denham, Sir John

18.

The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.

Goldsmith, Oliver

19.

The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.

Bruyere, Jean De La

20.

Ambition is the last refuge of failure.

Wilde, Oscar

21.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

22.

I want to work with the top people, because only they have the courage and the confidence and the risk-seeking profile that you need.

Cutler, Laurel

23.

Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.

Horace

24.

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

25.

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

Swift, Jonathan

26.

Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme; to be sublimely great or to be nothing.

Southey, Robert

27.

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

28.

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

Lao-Tzu

29.

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

Browning, Robert

30.

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

31.

Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

Pope, Alexander

32.

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

Browning, Robert

33.

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

Scott, Sir Walter

34.

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.

35.

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

Otway, Thomas

36.

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

Lilly, William

37.

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

Quinet, Edgar

38.

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

Taylor, Sir Henry

39.

We grow small trying to be great.

Jones, Eli Stanley

40.

Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.

Rogers, Kenny

41.

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

42.

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

43.

When ambition ends, happiness begins.

Proverb, Hungarian

44.

Ambition never comes to an end.

Kenko, Yoshida

45.

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

46.

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.