High Ambition Quotes

• It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Motivational, Courage, Strong

  Address at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 Apr. 1910. Richard M. Nixon quoted this passage in his address to the nation announcing his decision to resign the presidency, 8 Aug. 1974. See Theodore Roosevelt 1; Theodore Roosevelt 2; Theodore Roosevelt 5

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

  Horace

  Ambition, Heaven, Storm

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  No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

  William Blake

  Love, Motivational, Cute

  William Blake, W. H. Stevenson (2007). “Blake: The Complete Poems”, p.114, Pearson Education

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• If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  Leadership, Military, Ambition

  Carl von Clausewitz (2012). “Principles of War”, p.65, Courier Corporation

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• Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Stars, Powerful, Passion

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  Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

  Salvador Dali

  Inspirational, Motivational, Art

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• Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

  James Russell Lowell

  Inspirational, Fear, Educational

  James Russell Lowell (1871). “The poetical works of James Russell Lowell”, p.382

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• Get going. Move forward. Aim High. Plan a takeoff. Don't just sit on the runway and hope someone will come along and push the airplane. It simply won't happen. Change your attitude and gain some altitude. Believe me, you'll love it up here.

  Donald Trump

  Inspirational, Positive, Moving On

  Donald Trump (2004). “Trump: How to get rich ; and; Think like a billionaire”

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• Laziness is the road to progress, but only when it is allied to intelligent thought and high ambition.

  Richard Koch

  Ambition, Intelligent, Progress

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• Success achieved by the most contemptible means cannot but destroy the soul. ... It helps to cover up the inner corruption and gradually dulls one's scruples, so that those who begin with some high ambition cannot, even if they would, create anything out of themselves.

  Emma Goldman

  Success, Ambition, Mean

  Alphonso Lingis, Emma Goldman (1996). “Red Emma Speaks: An Emma Goldman Reader”, Humanities Press International

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• I've always had high ambitions and aspirations.

  James Dashner

  Ambition, Aspiration

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• All who have been great and good without Christianity would have been much greater and better with it. If there be, amongst the sons of men, a single exception to this maxim, the divine Socrates may be allowed to put in the strongest claim. It was his high ambition to deserve, by deeds, not by creeds, an unrevealed heaven, and by works, not by faith, to enter an unpromised land.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Ambition, Son, Men

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.155

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• Science in England is not a profession: its cultivators are scarcely recognised even as a class. Our language itself contains no single term by which their occupation can be expressed. We borrow a foreign word [Savant] from another country whose high ambition it is to advance science, and whose deeper policy, in accord with more generous feelings, gives to the intellectual labourer reward and honour, in return for services which crown the nation with imperishable renown, and ultimately enrich the human race.

  Charles Babbage

  Country, Ambition, Science

  Charles Babbage (1851). “The Exposition of 1851; or, Views of the industry, the science, and the government of England”, p.189

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• Oh, September! It is so soon for you to lose your friends to good work and strange loves and high ambitions. The sadness of that is too grown-up for you. Like whiskey and voting, it is a dangerous and heady business, as heavy as years. If I could keep your little tribe together forever, I would. I do so want to be generous. But some stories sprout bright vines that tendril off beyond our sight, carrying the folk we love best with them, and if I knew how to accept that with grace, I would share the secret.

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Ambition, Sadness, Sight

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• In a certain reign there was a lady not of the first rank whom the emperor loved more than any of the others. The grand ladies with high ambitions thought her a presumptuous upstart, and lesser ladies were still more resentful. Everything she did offended someone.

  Murasaki Shikibu

  Book, Ambition, Reign

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