Top 100 Quotes About Ambition
#1. The will to incessant creation is vulgar, betraying jealousy, envy, and ambition. Assuming that you are something, there is really nothing that you need to do-and yet you do a great deal. Above the "productive" man there is still a higher type.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#2. I'm not driven by killer ambition. I'm not a workaholic. I'm a good team player. I don't have to be captain, but I do want to play on a winning team.
Jane Pauley
#3. Lift up yourselves, men, take yourselves out of the mire and hitch your hopes to the very stars themselves. Let no man pull you down, let no man destroy your ambition, because man is but your companion, your equal; man is your brother; he is not your Lord, he is not your sovereign master.
Marcus Garvey
#4. The student's ambition should be to become a painter's painter, rather than a popular painter. The approbation of fellow artists based on sympathy and understanding is manifestly better than the fickle or fast homage of the greater public.
Walter J. Phillips
#5. An ambition which has conscience in it will always be a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road, and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success by the most faithful and minute performances of duty.
Henry Ward Beecher
#6. Achievement results from work realizing ambition.
Adam Ant
#7. 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
#8. I believe ambition is not a dirty word. It's just believing in yourself and your abilities. Imagine this: What would happen if we were all brave enough to believe in our own ability? To be a little bit more ambitious? I think the world would change.
Reese Witherspoon
#9. Ah! indeed he must not be mounted. It does not suit his ideas to be a saddle-horse. Every one has his ambition. 'Draw? Yes. Carry? No.' We must suppose that is what he said to himself.
Victor Hugo
#10. I never had any ambition to be a star, or whatever it is called, and I'm still embarrassed at the word.
John Hurt
#11. As he passed Alistair to depart the library, Bosque said, I'm pleased you didn't limit your vision. Ambition is the fertile soil in which true power can be cultivated.
Andrea Cremer
#12. So inconsiderable a thing is fortune in respect of human nature, and so insufficient to give content to a covetous mind, that an empire of that mighty extent and sway could not satisfy the ambition of two men;
Plutarch
#13. Elections to office, which are the great objects of ambition, I look at with terror!
John Adams
#14. Male leaders are celebrated for their successes, while their excesses are typically excused as the necessary and expected price of masculine ambition.
Kara Cooney
#15. My mind was not that of a conqueror, but that of a cow that spends its life chewing contentedly in the meadow of invoices, waiting for the train of eternal grace to pass by. How good it felt to exist without pride of ambition. To live in hibernation.
Amelie Nothomb
#16. You can set unachievable goals, and you can end up missing out on your life because, in some ways, ambition is kind of living in the future.
Simon Le Bon
#17. Ambition is an expensive impulse, one that requires an enormous investment of emotional capital. Like any investment, it can pay off in countless different kinds of coin.
Jeffrey Kluger
#18. Quite often, ambition operates on a level of irritation. Not even jealousy, just irritation.
Geoff Dyer
#19. I believe that the establishment of a real ambition, a powerfully galvanizing and exciting vision of what a group is setting out to create, is vitally important.
Kevin Allen
#21. The ambition of every good cook must be to make something very good with the fewest possible ingredients.
Urbain Dubois
#22. As a shy kid growing up in Sheffield, I fantasized about how it would be great to be famous so I wouldn't actually have to talk to people and feel awkward. And of course, as we all know from fairy stories, when you achieve that ambition, you find out you don't want it.
Jarvis Cocker
#23. It is the age of ambition that proves the mettle of men
Jose De Alencar
#24. For Shama and her sisters and women like them, ambition, if the word could be used, was a series of negatives; not to be unmaried, not to be childless, not to be an undutiful daughter, sister, wife, mother, widow.
V.S. Naipaul
#25. Communism brought out the worst in human nature and crippled people's ability or ambition to participate in a market economy.
Thomas Woods
#26. It is far too easy to discover complacency in mediocrity. Success is rooted in extreme ambition, implanted by divine guidance, and is achieved long before others are able to see it. Surprise them all, but you know this ... you are already there.
Carl Henegan
#27. Put personal ambition away from you, and then you will find consolation in living or in dying, whatever may happen to you.
Henri Frederic Amiel
#28. To inspire love is a woman's greatest ambition, believe me. It's the one thing woman care about and there's no woman so proud that she does not rejoice at heart in her conquests.
Moliere
#29. I didn't have a lot of ambition, which I think was a good thing. I mean, I was ambitious about quality, but I wasn't ambitious in the "I've got to get a pilot!" way. I never went out to L.A. for pilot season.
Justin Theroux
#30. In 1979, I moved to England and photographed Joy Division and Bowie and Beefheart. At that time I got images that I felt had that special, well - power is a big word to say - more like intimacy and ambition that outlasted the photo shoot. I felt that they would have a longer life.
Anton Corbijn
#31. Without Ataturk's vision, without his ambition and energy, without his astonishing boldness in sweeping away traditions accumulated over centuries, today's Turkey would not exist, and the world would be much poorer.
Stephen Kinzer
#32. I admire the ambition of the project, and the generosity of many of the lines.
Robert Fagles
#33. I wasn't the typical pageant girl - I was a little more nerdy, and they gave me a voice. I created the Queen of the Universe pageant, which is charity-based, to benefit UNESCO. For me, the most important thing is that contestants have a charity-based platform or charity ambition.
Joyce Giraud
#34. I didn't have the equipment for the regular world of being a lawyer. I didn't have the imagination for that. I did have a funny kind of ambition, but I didn't know where to put it.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg
#35. May the same Almighty Goodness banish the accursed monster, war, from all lands, with her hated associates, rapine and insatiable ambition!
Daniel Boone
#36. So many Jonathans. A plague of literary Jonathans. If you read only the New York Times Book Review, you'd think it was the most common male name in America. Synonymous with talent, greatness. Ambition, vitality.
Jonathan Franzen
#37. A young man's ambition, can there be a more fleeting prospect?
David Baldacci
#38. 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.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield
#39. She raised herself up on an elbow, stroked my forehead & said in a hushed half-whisper, 'You will be famous.' "The seed was planted. Ambition fed on the compost of my vanity.
F.R. Tallis
#40. If you leave your art, the world will beat you back to it. The world has not an ambition worth sharing, or a prize worth handling.
George Bernard Shaw
#41. Aggressiveness is good in a combat leader. Combining that with ambition and insecurity becomes more problematic.
Richard North Patterson
#42. WE NEED MORE OF THOSE AND IF YOU STILL HATE THE WORD, IT IS NOT THE WORD THAT IS IMPORTANT. IT'S THE IDEA AND THE AMBITION BEHIND IT.
Emma Watson
#43. My sole ambition is to rid Mexico of the class that has oppressed her and given the people a chance to know what real liberty means. And if I could bring that about today by giving up my life, I would do it gladly.
Pancho Villa
#44. You don't become a runner by winning a morning workout. The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many day, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials.
John L. Parker Jr.
#45. Flesh and blood,
You, brother mine, that entertain'd ambition,
Expell'd remorse and nature, who, with Sebastian-
Whose inward pinches therefore are most strong-
Would here have kill'd your king, I do forgive thee,
Unnatural though thou art.
William Shakespeare
#46. My ambition is to not have to work any more. In 10 years I want to stop, and I want to be living with my family, taking care of my house. I want to be a housewife.
Paz Vega
#47. When I was only eleven years old, I decided to become a writer. I told this ambition in a letter to Laura Ingalls Wilder; the die was cast. How could I go back on my word?
Sonia Levitin
#48. If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon's but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.
Ulysses S. Grant
#49. There weren't a lot of career opportunities in crazy-fast hardcore punk, so you didn't have a lot of ambition, just the love and passion to play music with your friends.
Dave Grohl
#50. I haven't ever had any ambition in my life. I just drift from day to day with a stupid grin on my face.
Ian Gillan
#51. In any organization men would move up form the bottom to the top. That develops loyalty, ambition and talent, because there is a chance for promotion.
Alfred P. Sloan
#52. Ambition drives you on, ability certainly helps, but the fickle finger of fate and luck are great things.
Fergus Henderson
#53. You always have to know what the ambition of the scene is, what the purpose of that scene is in the telling of the story overall, so that you're there to support the story.
Harrison Ford
#55. It has always been my dream and ambition to introduce Irish dancing to the world.
Michael Flatley
#56. All facts prove that the Saenuri Party is a group of traitors who stoop to any infamy to realize its ambition to seize power.
Park Geun-hye
#57. I had no ambition when I was a kid other than to play guitar and get in a rock 'n' roll band. I don't really like to be the guy in the white suit at the front. Like in the Beatles, I was the one who kept quiet at the back and let the other egos be at the front.
George Harrison
#58. She didn't know if this excitement was fueled by her ambition to find out something that nobody else knew. Or by the anticipation of finding out.
Antonia Michaelis
#59. Vain the ambition of kings Who seek by trophies and dead things To leave a living name behind, And weave but nets to catch the wind.
John Webster
#60. Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that's all there is in his soul," she thought; "as for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on.
Leo Tolstoy
#61. I should have been smart enough to stay happy. But my ambition ruled my life.
Eva Gabor
#62. I never had the ambition to be something. I had the ambition to do something.
Walter Cronkite
#63. The primary ambition of Nietzsche's critique of knowledge is ... to demonstrate that 'truths' are fictions masking moral commitments.
John Carroll
#64. Assaulted as I am by ambition, covetousness, rashness and superstition, and having such enemies to life as that within me, should I start wondering about the motions of the Universe?
Michel De Montaigne
#65. A person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip a genius in society, if that person has focused goals.
Brian Tracy
#66. Love and meekness, lord,
Become a churchman better than ambition:
Win straying souls with modesty again,
Cast none away.
William Shakespeare
#67. As a Scot, representing a Scottish constituency for almost the past 25 years, I do not harbour an overweening ambition to pronounce on each and every matter exclusively English.
Charles Kennedy
#68. For the Javanese...the purpose of knowledge (kaweruh) is love, not ambition or cleverness. Knowledge comes from caring enough to suffer and learn.
Therese Walsh
#69. Ambition is the great fire, it's the liberator of the
unconscious person. No goals, no growth; no clarity, no change.
Brendon Burchard
#70. Frog in the mud is happier than the man, because it has no ambition to reach the stars!
Mehmet Murat Ildan
#71. If your energy is as boundless as your ambition, total commitment may be a way of life you should seriously consider
Joyce Brothers
#72. Ambition, as that passion is generally understood,- a strong desire to rise above others, to occupy the first place, - formed no part of Lafayette's character. In him the passion was nothing more than a constant and irresistible wish to do good.
Marquis De Lafayette
#73. The accolades, just like the scrapes and bruises, fade in the end, and all you're left with is your ambition.
Nicole Krauss
#74. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Anonymous
#75. The ambition of the present Labour government is that every worker in the country will have a greater than average income.
Harold Wilson
#76. 'Keeper' is about fathers, ultimately. and also conservation, commitment and ambition.
Mal Peet
#77. Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.
Anatoli Boukreev
#78. Seeking can become stressful when you apply the same laws that you apply in the material world - hard work, exacting plans, driving ambition, and attachment to outcome.
Deepak Chopra
#79. It is ambition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish which lies in the way to knowledge.
John Locke
#80. To be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forgo even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness?
Lemony Snicket
#82. I don't really have an ambition to become the Rolling Stones, or anything like that. For me, it's just playing music is kind of a transcendent, amazing gift, so when people come together and they play, I think it's a real special thing.
Jonathan Jackson
#83. 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
#84. TOTALLY AMERICAN" personifies the dreams, inspiration, and ambition of the American people at a time we need it most. Reach deep in tribute to our founding Fathers, our Constitution, and our brave military forces. This is the fabric of America!
Stu Taylor
#85. If anything, she had been guilty of pride and raw ambition.
Jenny Nordberg
#86. I'd like to believe that achieving a leadership position is all about competency, capability and ambition, so I try not to distinguish between the sexes when it comes to giving career advice.
Heather Bresch
#87. I've always affirmed, nobody's ambition is worth the blood of any Nigerian.
Goodluck Jonathan
#88. Ambition is not what man does ... but what man would do.
Robert Browning
#89. Market values are fixed only in part by balance sheets and income statements; much more by the hopes and fears of humanity; by greed, ambition, acts of God, invention, financial stress and strain, weather, discovery, fashion and numberless other causes impossible to be listed without omission.
Gerald M. Loeb
#90. My ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.
Michael Eric Dyson
#91. I really don't have tremendous political ambition. I have policy ambition.
Paul Ryan
#92. Nippers was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powers - ambition and indigestion.
Herman Melville
#93. Besides(..), it's a poor woman whose ambition is only to be loved.
Sarah Perry
#94. Any work done by a follower of Christ to the glory of God is "gold, silver, precious stones." But if any follower of Christ works with any self-interest or personal ambition involved, it will be "wood, hay, and stubble" and will be burned.
Billy Graham
#95. I see Macbeth as a young, open-faced warrior, who is gradually sucked into a whirpool of events because of his ambition. When he meets the weird sisters and hears their prophecy, he's like the man who hopes to win a million - a gamble for high stakes.
Roman Polanski
#96. Ambition is all very well, my lad, but you must cloak it.
Jonathan Stroud
#97. And in so doing, mayhap we reshaped the gods themselves. Now that was a thought made me shudder to the bone. I wondered if it were true, and if it were, what would happen when some deity bent out of true by mortal ambition returned to set the record straight.
Jacqueline Carey
#98. When I was a child I wanted to be Pope. My greatest disappointment is missing out on that. I also wanted to be a tap dancer but I never fulfilled that ambition either.
Peter Ackroyd
#99. Am I ambitious? I used to be afraid of that word but now I think ambition is a good thing.
Vera Farmiga
#100. These poems possess intelligence, erudition, gravitas and urgency. Serious and moving in voice and ambition, this passionately lyrical and articulate work reminds me very much of the capacious, fierce and intelligent work of Adrienne Rich.
Tony Hoagland
