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Ambition Quotes

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Ambition Quotes

“Are you in a universe which is ruled by natural laws and, therefore, is stable, firm, absolute - and knowable? Or are you in an incomprehensible chaos, a realm of inexplicable miracles, an unpredictable, unknowable flux, which your mind is impotent to grasp? The nature of your actions - and of your ambition - will be different, according to which set of answers you come to accept.”

Mind Different Action Law Religion Universe Natural Answers Accepting Ambition Miracle Absolutes Chaos Firm Realms Stable Unpredictable Natural Law Inexplicable Flux

Book:Philosophy: Who Needs It

Source: Philosophy: Who Needs It

“I think part of being a parent, to love one's child, is to accept them as they come - not to see them as instruments of our ambition or as creatures to be molded, as if they were themselves commodities.”

Ifs Thinking Children Parent Accepting Creatures Ambition Instruments Commodity Being A Parent

Author:Michael Sandel

“You have this ambition to make something perfect, exactly right. Of course, necessarily, it fails in some way and you have to accept that for what it is, and then you're on to the next thing.”

Way Courses Next Perfect Accepting Failing Ambition

Author:Gregory Crewdson

“Sometimes you can accept an important post, on condition that it really puts you in a position to help women. Unfortunately, women who have important posts very often adopt masculine standards-power, ambition, personal success - and cut themselves off from other women.”

Important Sometimes Helping Accepting Cutting Conditions Position Ambition Standards Posts Masculine Personal Success

Author:Simone de Beauvoir

“How could I have been the valedictorian, the smartest, and never known Harlem existed? As a result, I began a lifelong learning experience, because I could not accept what the party line was with education - that these people want to live like this, these people don't have ambition, they don't want to work. You know, all the usual bullshit.”

People Party Accepting Ambition Bullshit Lifelong Learning Experience Lifelong Learning

Author:Lynne Stewart

“Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.”

“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”

Ifs Way Firsts Wisdom Accepting Ambition Highest Obligation Conclusion Right Way

Book:A search for solitude: pursuing the monk's true life

Source: A search for solitude: pursuing the monk's true life

“Although she had resisted this knowledge all her life, had lived determinedly in the future focused there by ambition, she understood at last that this was the real condition of humanity: The dance of life occurred not yesterday or tomorrow, but only here at the still point that was the present. This truth is simmple, sel-evident, but difficult to accept, for we sentimentalize the past and wallow in it, while we endure the moment and in every waking hour dream of the future.”

Stills Real Moments Dream Lasts Past Humanity Difficult Hours Accepting Conditions Tomorrow Truth Is Ambition Understood Endure Focused Yesterday Waking Evident

Book:The Taking: A Novel

Source: The Taking: A Novel

“It is simple to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and private gain. It is more comfortable to sit content in the easy approval of friends and of neighbours than to risk the friction and the controversy that comes with public affairs. It is easier to fall in step with the slogans of others than to march to the beat of the internal drummer - to make and stand on judgements of your own. And it far easier to accept and to stand on the past, than to fight for the answers of the future”

“He wanted to impart some of the truths Bruce Denton had taught him, that you dont' 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 days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials. How could he make them understand?”

Ifs Way Years Running Wanted Courses Winning Accepting Morning Week Taught Months Ambition Miles Trials Runners Workout Impart Ferocity

Author:John L. Parker Jr.

“It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously -- and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition.”

Source: The Happiness Project (Revised Edition): Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

“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.”

“One is defeated only when one accepts defeat.”

Accepting Ambition Perseverance Defeat Defeated

Author:Ferdinand Foch

“To accept yourself wherever. you are.... And don't think in terms of competition! You need not be anywhere else. Wherever you are, if you can be happy there, you have become religious, you have become spiritual. Spirituality knows no competition, spirituality knows no greed, spirituality knows no ambition - because spirituality means desirelessness.”

Ifs Thinking Knows Needs Mean Spiritual Spirituality Term Religious Accepting Ambition Competition Greed Accepting Yourself Wherever You Are

Book:The Discipline of Transcendence: Discourses on the Forty-two Sutras of Buddha

Source: The Discipline of Transcendence: Discourses on the Forty-two Sutras of Buddha