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Ambition Quotes

Browse 3325 quotes about Ambition.

Ambition Quotes

“Fame, the sovereign deity of proud ambition.”

Proud Fame Ambition Sovereign Deities

Book:The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan: With a Biographical and Critical Sketch

Source: The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan: With a Biographical and Critical Sketch

“Fortunes are made, if I the facts may state-- Though poor myself, I know the fortunate: First, there's a knowledge of the way from whence Good fortune comes--and this is sterling sense: Then perseverance, never to decline The chase of riches till the prey is thine; And firmness never to be drawn away By any passion from that noble prey-- By love, ambition, study, travel, fame, Or the vain hope that lives upon a name.”

Source: The Poetical Works of Crabbe, Heber, and Pollok: Complete in One Volume

“I'm quite happy with the music carrying on. I've never been one to clamor for fame. It just got dumped in my lap. The ambition is definitely not fame. The ambition is to be creative.”

Creative Fame Ambition Be Creative Lap Dumped Carrying On Clamor

Author:Bryan Adams

“Never, I say, had a country so many openings to happiness as this.... Her cause was good. Her principles just and liberal. Her temper serene and firm.... The remembrance then of what is past, if it operates rightly must inspire her with the most laudable of an ambition, that of adding to the fair fame she began with. The world has seen her great adversity.... Let then, the world see that she can bear prosperity; and that her honest virtue in time of peace is equal to the bravest virtue in time of war.”

Ifs World War Country America Past Causes Principles Virtue Honest Inspire Bears Fame Equal Ambition Fairs Adversity Prosperity Opening Firm Temper Remembrance Serene

Author:Thomas Paine

“I always knew I wanted to be somebody. I think that's where it begins. People decide, "I want to be somebody. I want to make a contribution. I want to leave my mark here." Then different factors contribute to how you will do that.”

People Thinking Want Different Wanted Success Fame Ambition Mark Factors Contribution

Author:Faith Ringgold

“The favorites of fortune or of fame topple from their pedestals before our eyes without diverting us from ambition.”

Eye Fame Ambition Fortune Pedestal

Book:La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims

Source: La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims

“Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,--the sweet, without the other side,--the bitter.”

Thinking Men Sides Wealth Greatness Sweet Fame Office Ambition Bitter

Book:The Portable Emerson: New Edition

Source: The Portable Emerson: New Edition

“When you start out in this business, the Hall of Fame is not what you're thinking about. You think all you want to do is make it to the major leagues. That's your goal, and that's your ambition as a broadcaster, just as it is with playing.”

Thinking Want Goal Fame Ambition Majors League Halls Hall Of Fame Major League Thinking About You Broadcasters

Author:Hank Greenwald

“I never engaged in public affairs for my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice or ambition, or even the desire of fame”

Desire Interest My Own Pleasure Fame Ambition Affair Envy Jealousy Engaged Avarice Public Affairs

Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

Source: The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations

“I am not part of that earlier Australian generation who set off on a deliberate search for fame and fortune in distant lands. My generation was the first that didn't need to. By the 1980's when I left home, our culture had grown deep enough and wide enough to encompass all but the most rarefied of ambitions.”

Needs Firsts Art Enough Home Culture Left Generations Land Fame Ambition Fortune Wide Deliberate Australian My Generation

Book:Boyer Lectures 2011

Source: Boyer Lectures 2011

“I can't speak for everybody, but sometimes, people get in this showbiz game and they get the money, but then they forget why they got in the game in the first place. I don't even look at it as fame, I just look at it as me being me, and me going out here everyday and being productive, because I am the product, and I'm selling myself. I'm selling my ambition and my integrity and my adversity, and I'd just like to be that.”

People Sometimes Speak Forget Integrity Fame Ambition Adversity Everyday Selling Productive Being Me My Ambition Showbiz

Author:Young Jeezy

“You write for glory. You play for glory. There's an ambition to excel, isn't there, to be a star? To score more, to do more, even when it's a team sport. So I think striving for glory is a natural subject for a writer. Seeking fame.”

Thinking Writing Sports Natural Team Fame Ambition Glory Strive

Author:James Salter

“Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim, wisdom is the source of virtue and of fame; obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed.”

Wisdom Virtue Share Mankind Source Fame Ambition Aim Enjoyed Labour Employed

Author:Alfred North Whitehead

“The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.”

Humans War Desire Passion Peace Dangerous Duty Fame Ambition Weakness Tyranny Vanity Breasts Strongest Tyrants Conspiracy Honorable Avarice

Author:James Madison

“The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time.”

Love Names Fame Authority Ambition Highest Excellence

Book:Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)

“Our energy is in proportion to the resistance it meets. We attempt nothing great but from a sense of the difficulties we have to encounter, we persevere in nothing great but from a pride in overcoming them.”

Passion Energy Pride Fame Ambition Overcoming Difficulty Perseverance Resistance Encounters Proportion Persevere

Book:Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].

Source: Characteristics: in the manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims [by W. Hazlitt].

“Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another's fame.”

Heart Fame Ambition Trumpets

Author:Baltasar Gracian

“The sculptor will chip off all unnecessary material to set free the angel. Nature will chip and pound us remorselessly to bring out our possibilities. She will strip us of wealth, humble our pride, humiliate our ambition, let us down from the ladder of fame, will discipline us in a thousand ways, if she can develop a little character. Everything must give way to that. Wealth is nothing, position is nothing, fame is nothing, manhood is everything.”

Source: ORISON SWETT MARDEN Premium Collection - Wisdom & Empowerment Series (18 Books in One Volume): Steps to Success and Power, How to Get What You Want, An Iron Will, Be Good to Yourself, Every Man A King, Keeping Fit, Prosperity – How to Attract It, Stepping-Stones To Fame And Fortune...

“Boys, be ambitious. Be ambitious not for money, not for selfish aggrandizement, not for the evanescent thing which men call fame. Be ambitious for the attainment of all that a man can be.”

Men Boys Fame Ambition Selfish Ambitious Attainment

Author:William Clark

“I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame.”

People Thinking Want Writing I Can Book Young Media Fame Ambition Competition Strive Great Book Young Writers

Author:Zadie Smith