Ambition Quotes - Page 2

• If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Walden ch. 18 (1854)

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• Ambition, having reached the summit, longs to descend.

  Pierre Corneille

  Summit

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• Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need

  Ben Jonson

  Needs, Slave

  Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, John Fletcher (1811). “The Dramatic Works of Ben Jonson, and Beaumont and Fletcher”, p.195

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• Be realistic, demand the impossible!

  Che Guevara

  Demand, Impossible, Realist

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• Ambition aspires to descend

  Pierre Corneille

  Aspire

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• Ambition is the grand enemy of all peace.

  John Cowper Powys

  Enemy

  "The Meaning of Culture". Book by John Cowper Powys, 1929.

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• Ambition can creep as well as soar.

  Edmund Burke

  Business, Creeps, Soar

  'Letters on a Regicide Peace' Letter 3 (1797)

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

  Ambrose Bierce

  Life, Reality, Enemy

  Cynic's Word Book (1906) p. 17

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• It's stasis that kills you off in the end, not ambition.

  Bono

  Growth, Chivalry, Ends

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• 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.

  Edward Dahlberg

  Work, Ocean, Sea

  Edward Dahlberg (1967). “Alms for Oblivion”, U of Minnesota Press

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• Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

  Niccolo Machiavelli

  Nature, Teaching, Four Elements

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

  Susan Sontag

  Work, Doe, Ifs

  1963 The Benefactor, ch.1. = = = = =

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• I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.

  George W. Bush

  Humor, Political, Hopeful

  Interview with the Associated Press, January 18, 2001.

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• Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise. By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies? Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys, And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.

  Alexander Pope

  Laughter, Son, Sky

  Alexander Pope, William Warburton (1757). “The Works of Alexander Pope Esq”, p.134

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• In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it.

  Christian Nestell Bovee

  Love, Successful, Literature

  Christian Nestell Bovee (1862). “Intuitions and Summaries of Thought”, p.140

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• As a teenager I was so insecure. I was the type of guy that never fitted in because he never dared to choose. I was convinced I had absolutely no talent at all. For nothing. And that thought took away all my ambition, too.

  Johnny Depp

  Inspirational, Teenager, Insecure

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Courage, Honesty, Work

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: with Murphy's essay”, p.82

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• 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.

  George Jean Nathan

  Success, Work, Stress

  George Jean Nathan, Charles Angoff (1998). “The World of George Jean Nathan: Essays, Reviews, & Commentary”, Hal Leonard Corporation

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• All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition.

  Cesare Pavese

  Inferiority, Sin

  Cesare Pavese, Alma Elizabeth Murch (1961). “This Business of Living”, p.101, Transaction Publishers

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• Men would be angels, angels would be gods.

  Alexander Pope

  Angel, Men, Would Be

  'An Essay on Man' Epistle 1 (1733) l. 125

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• It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.

  Seneca the Younger

  Evil, Quality, Looks

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• The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government.

  James K. Polk

  Military, Government, World

  James K. Polk's Inaugural Address, avalon.law.yale.edu. March 4, 1845.

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• I see, but cannot reach, the height That lies forever in the light.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Lying, Light, Forever

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1867). “The Poetical Works of H. W. Longfellow. Complete Edition”, p.157

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• Who know but He, whose hand the lightning forms, Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind.

  Alexander Pope

  Ocean, Hands, Wings

  Alexander Pope (1835). “The Works of Alexander Pope: With a Memoir of the Author, Notes, and Critical Notes on Each Poem”, p.21

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• 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.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Work, Men, Ambitious

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