Quotes About Ambitious People

#1. Ambitious people understand intelligent people far better than intelligent people understand ambitious people; therefore, ambition will always triumph over intelligence. Once you appreciate this reality, civilization becomes clearer and unfortunately, more distressing.

D.A. Blankinship

#2. There is always something moving, brewing. There are ambitious people everywhere. Wicked people. The only thing to do is to deal with them with courage and decision. One must beware of uncertainty, weakness or conflicting emotions - they lead to defeat

Haile Selassie

#3. But haven't all ambitious people something of the monstrous about them? You, sir, for instance, if you will forgive me, are a little bit monstrous.

Mervyn Peake

#4. It's not fair to look at me and my husband as a couple when it comes to work. In the lab we are colleagues. We have the same vision and we both are very ambitious. I think ambitious people find ambitious people to play with.

May-Britt Moser

#5. The girls everyone considers the "prettiest" are not always the most interesting or ambitious people.

Crystal Renn

#6. I believe whatever smart, ambitious people are working on will be the trend of the future. I do think that it's worth thinking critically about what the future will be.

Sam Altman

#7. Ambitious people baffle me. What are they looking for, what do they think they're missing?

Marty Rubin

#8. I am confirmed in my division of human energies. Ambitious people climb, but faithful people build.

Julia Ward Howe

#9. I've known ambitious people with no aptitude for the thing they did. Most of whom, rather terrifyingly, tended to succeed.

Neil Gaiman

#10. Ambitious people awe some and terrify others!

Ali Vali

#11. Talented people hit targets no one else can hit. Ambitious people aim to hit targets no one else can see.

Addoo S. Mukhtar

#12. Ambitious people know that everything they do and every discipline they adhere to, form the links in the chain of events that will lead them to their final destination.

Jim Rohn

#13. Happiness never made anyone rich or famous. That must be why ambitious people avoid it.

Marty Rubin

#14. Thinking ahead, what really happens to us will depend on how many people we have who are of the great and sober and dynamic middle-class - the strivers, the planners, the ambitious ones.

Robert Menzies

#15. When you're ambitious, it's really hard to be supportive of other people. But it's our job to try, even though one gets jealous.

Squeak Carnwath

#16. People have always thought that I wasn't ambitious. They judged by appearances and were fooled. I was competitive. I wanted success and was willing to work for it.

Perry Como

#17. I'm not ambitious. I don't want to get anywhere, I don't want anything more. I sometimes think that for me that is the real freedom, that I don't want anything. I don't want money or prizes. I want people to know that a war is going to be fought.

Arundhati Roy

#18. This is New York. If people found out worshipping the devil actually worked, every ambitious type A would be practicing it in their studio apartments.

Marisha Pessl

#19. If ambitious fantasies make people blush, and sexual fantasies make people blush and feel guilty, fantasies of violence and death may make people blush and feel guilty-and frightened too.

Judith Viorst

#20. Big ideas, big ambitious projects need to be embedded within culture at a level deeper than the political winds. It needs to be deeper than the economic fluctuations that could turn people against an expensive project because they're on an unemployment line and can't feed their families.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

#21. It is very difficult for any couple who are married if both people are ambitious. I don't know if it's just too hard to be married to a woman that wants to be a movie star.

Ethan Hawke

#22. The United States is a proud, determined, hard-working, talented, patriotic nation and people, and it is not over-extended in the manner of empires of the past that took over the lands of others and eventually collapsed under the weight of the over-ambitious hegemon.

Conrad Black

#23. When you're a very ambitious person, the things that are disappointing are when other people around you aren't as enthusiastic.

Reba McEntire

#24. China is a sleeping giant if you just take a look at their experience regarding all kinds of sport, not football though, and the number of people that love sports. Chinese are eager to hit new shores and they are ambitious.

Berti Vogts

#25. Humans are ambitious and rational and proud. And we don't fall in line with people who don't respect us and who we don't believe have our best interests at heart. We are willing to follow leaders, but only to the extent that we believe they call on our best, not our worst.

Rachel Maddow

#26. People always say, well, how do you get through show business? How do you swim the waters? And how do you survive and all that? I had a very solid method, and that is team up with ambitious partners.

Garry Marshall

#27. A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.

Jean De La Bruyere

#28. People say it's not ambitious, but it is actually quite ambitious wanting to help people.

Prince William

#29. When sudden death takes a president, opportunities for new beginnings flourish among the ambitious and the tensions among such people can be dramatic, as they were when President Kennedy was killed.

Russell Baker

#30. I think when people talk about ambition and talking to him, it might have seemed that he wasn't ambitious.

Alan Hansen

#31. God visits suffering on innocent people of scope and scale that would even embarrass the most ambitious psychopath

Sam Harris

#32. It is easier for an ambitious friend to become an enemy than for an enemy to become a friend. It is even easier to make friends than you can find people to trust as friends.

Janvier Chouteu-Chando

#33. And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion. And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?

Joseph Conrad

#34. [Kay] was not at all an unpleasant person really, but clever, quick, proud, passionate and ambitious. He was one of those people who would be neither a follower nor a leader, but
only an aspiring heart, impatient in the failing body which imprisoned it.

T.H. White

#35. I never saw myself as being ambitious, I saw myself as being in love with the profession. I'm a people person. I love to get to know different kinds of people.

Jack Kelley

#36. Most of the people I write about have been ambitious outlanders who have been attracted to New York from other parts of the world.

Jay McInerney

#37. I hope I'll never get ambitious enough to try anything. It's so much nicer to be damned sure I could do it better than other people - and I might not could if I tried...

Nancy Milford

#38. Never surround yourself with people who are envious of your ambitions. Decide to be at the right place at the right time and save yourself for greater opportunities.

Israelmore Ayivor

#39. The truth about myself? I'm obstinate, self-assured, ambitious and sloppy. I think I lead a quite normal life, certainly with five hours of trainig per day. Many people would probably be surprised if they met me.

Franziska Van Almsick

#40. Super-ambitious goals tend to be unifying and energizing to people; but only if they believe there's a chance of success.

Peter Diamandis

#41. The way you wield your power is about using it to afford you opportunities that you wouldn't otherwise have. So I'm very creatively ambitious, and I just hope people notice it; that's all I want.

Bat For Lashes

#42. The people who are going into music who hunger, they're going into pop music. There are some badass women who are ambitious and hungry and brave, and they're in pop.

Jeanine Tesori

#43. Of course I believe imaginative architecture can make a difference to people's lives, but I wish it was possible to divert some of the effort we put into ambitious museums and galleries into the basic architectural building blocks of society.

Zaha Hadid

#44. I'm in a happy place. I'm very at peace with who I am and what I'm doing and the people around me, so I think I'm probably most ambitious at where I am.

Norman Reedus

#45. People can say I am a terrible role model because I swear all the time or that I fight people. Look, I don't want little girls to have the same ambitions as me. I want them to know that it is O.K. to be ambitious. I want them to know that it is O.K. to say whatever it is that is on their mind.

Ronda Rousey

#46. I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. Since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition. In fact, there are so few people this crazy that I feel like I know them all by first name.

Larry Page

#47. I think in the end, when you're famous, people like to narrow you down to a few personality traits. I think I've just become this ambitious, say-whatever's-on-her-mind, intimidating person. And that's part of my personality, but it's certainly not anywhere near the whole thing.

Madonna Ciccone

#48. Make sure it is not too diverse or spread out so people don't know where to go or what to do. So keep a sharp focus. It can be ambitious but should have a small agenda.

Amy Ziering

#49. I think people are people and, if their feelings are truthful, they can connect. It doesn't matter if you're an aging, 50-something wrestler at the end of his career, or an ambitious, 20-something ballet dancer.

Darren Aronofsky

#50. 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.

Judith M Bardwick

#51. Anybody who is an ambitious politician would never ever aspire to a Vice Presidency. And yet, people find themselves in that position, and so, therein lies the rub.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus

#52. I don't know if I was as ambitious as to change the world, but I do feel like - the reason why I called the album "Our Version of Events" was that I feel a lot of people are not represented in pop music and popular culture.

Emeli Sande

#53. Gorbachevism, carried out by mediocre but ambitious party bureaucrats, is an attempt not only to outdo the people but also the objective laws of human society.

Alexander Zinoviev

#54. No ambition which feeds on blood can be a worthy one

Nilesh Rathod

#55. You will see true character after a defeated ambition

Bangambiki Habyarimana

#56. Too many people are frightened. They want youth to last. They complain bitterly if sickness comes. But the world is always in tumult, and fortunes rise and fall and fail. It is the ambitious who accomplish things. It takes courage to be ambitious, for never was anything great achieved without risk.

Jeff Wheeler

#57. A lot of people these days are too ambitious; their sights are set too high at the start and they end up diving in too deep, quitting their day job too soon. They move to Vegas or wherever, make an all-or-nothing commitment before they're ready, and burn out.

Phil Ivey

#58. Traditionally women have been more reticent to acknowledge their ambition and to say it with pride. So I like having people who work for us who are ambitious, engaged, respectful. Mis-hiring is a huge mistake. It's a tremendous opportunity cost throwing the position to the wrong person.

Ivanka Trump

#59. I don't think I'm very ambitious at all. But I seem to play people who have that quality.

Catherine Keener

#60. We must humble ourselves before [others] so we may learn from what others have lived. It is only when we have added their expertise to our own that we can truly excel towards our most ambitious goals and reach our fullest potential.

A.J. Darkholme

#61. The world is an ambitious business. It continuously expands and evolves. But people are lazy and God is far too lovely to do something about it.

Stefan Emunds

#62. If this superstitious fear of Spirits were taken away, and with it, Prognostiques from Dreams, false Prophecies, and many other things depending thereon, by which, crafty ambitious persons abuse the simple people, men would be much more fitted then they are for civill Obedience.

Thomas Hobbes

#63. Obviously, personal responsibility is important. But there's no evidence that people who are poor are less ambitious than anyone else. In fact, many work long hours at backbreaking jobs.

Robert Reich

#64. Ethics must be reintroduced to public service to restore people's faith in government. Without such faith, democracy cannot flourish. Your ambitious agenda is filling a desperate need.

Walter Cronkite

#65. A lot of the people I know connect through working. We're all so ambitious. Sometimes my friends will say, 'I want to hang out with you.' And I just go, 'Well, let's do a project together.' That's the only way I can.

Jill Soloway

#66. If you are ambitious to talk well, you must be as much as possible in the society of well-bred, cultured people. If you seclude yourself, though you are a college graduate, you will be a poor converser.

Orison Swett Marden

#67. It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.

Louisa May Alcott

#68. People ask why I always play crazy people and free spirits. I guess it is because I like to have fun. But I am more ambitious than your average free spirit. This job is hard enough that, without drive and hard work, you will never make it work.

Lucy Punch

#69. My career started young and I was really ambitious, and then I had success and I hung out with people who were much older. I think I might have been temporally misplaced, so I thought I was 40. It was a premature midlife crisis.

Elizabeth Gilbert

#70. Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.

Robert Louis Stevenson

#71. Well, I don't know. It's long, it's longer than both of the other books put together, so it's more ambitious. I think I get under the skin of the people a lot more than in the other books.

Cory Doctorow

#72. The young people working for me are ambitious and hard-working. That work ethic has always been a trait of the British.

Simon Cowell

#73. The people excited by ambitious demagogues, sooner or later return into the hands of the Aristocracy.

Napoleon Bonaparte

#74. Major Major had lied, and it was good. He was not really surprised that it was good, for he had observed that people who did lie were, on the whole, more resourceful and ambitious and successful than people who did not lie.

Joseph Heller

#75. People are renovating places and opening ambitious new venues. That's one thing that music does. It gets people out of their houses, and gets them hanging out together.

David Byrne

#76. I'm ambitious for is to not get caught 'acting'. I want to really feel the role and not let people see the process, or to let them stand back and admire it, because I think that does finally get in the way.

Harrison Ford

#77. The companies we admire are like the people we admire: resilient, authentic, personable, collaborative, ambitious, and humble.

Chip Conley

#78. New York is a city where people are ambitious. They want things.

Candace Bushnell

#79. I incline to an aristocratic republic. This would satisfy the ambitious spirit among our people. We shall learn from the historic mistakes of others in the same way as we learn from our own; for we are a modern nation and wish to be the most modern in the world.

Theodor Herzl

#80. When someone like myself points out the rather obvious and compelling evidence that God is cruel and unjust, because he visits suffering on innocent people of a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath, we're told that? God is mysterious.

Sam Harris

#81. There's so many confusing messages that you're being sent about being pretty but not too pretty, smart but not too smart, ambitious but in a way that makes people comfortable. It's very hard to navigate.

Rachel Bloom

#82. I'm extremely ambitious. I don't know why people are afraid to say that. I won't sell my soul to the devil, but I do want success and I don't think that's bad.

Jada Pinkett Smith

#83. I was really ambitious, so I was innovative. I was one of the first DJs to do live calls, 'cause I found this phone device that would pick up other people's voices.

Idris Elba

#84. I guess I'm afraid of not being like other people. No, that's not true. I'm not afraid of not being like other people. I'm afraid I won't find anybody who doesn't mind me not being like other people. I'm not ambitious for money or power. I want to find some real way to live.

Jeanette Winterson

#85. For the most ambitious young people, the corporate ladder is obsolete.

Paul Graham

#86. Inflammatory passion and selfish interest characterizes most men, whereas ambition characterizes men who pursue and hold national office. Such men rise from the people through a process of self-selection, since politics is a dirty business that discourages all but the most ambitious.

Tom Cotton

#87. People think they have to be ambitious. But at a certain age, all you want is to be around nice, decent people.

Graydon Carter

#88. Ambition is important. Of course you can't get anywhere without talent, but there are a lot of talented people. To succeed, you have to be the most ambitious talented person.

Natalie Massenet

#89. All people are meant to be creative in a certain way. What way? Perhaps I was cut out to be a wonderful housewife, with a marvelous sense of cooking, being with my friends, running a perfect house. But I am not ambitious towards anything.

Diana Vreeland

#90. Love is the most practical thing in the world. To love, to be kind, not to be greedy, not to be ambitious, not to be influenced by people but to think for yourself-these are all very practical things, and they will bring about a practical, happy society.

Jiddu Krishnamurti