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Ambition Quotes

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Ambition Quotes

“Other passions have objects to flatter them, and seem to content and satisfy them for a while; there is power in ambition, pleasure in luxury, and pelf in covetousness; but envy can gain nothing but vexation.”

Seems Passion Pleasure Objects Ambition Gains Envy Luxury Covetousness Vexation

Author:Michel de Montaigne

“The object of ambition, unlike that of love, never being wholly possessed, ambition is the more durable passion of the two.”

Two Passion Objects Ambition Possessed

Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them; as in ascending the heights of ambition, which look bright from below, every step we rise shows us some new and gloomy prospect of hidden disappointment; so in our descent from the summits of pleasure, though the vale of misery below may appear, at first, dark and gloomy, yet the busy mind, still attentive to its own amusement, finds, as we descend, something to flatter and to please. Still as we approach, the darkest objects appear to brighten, and the mortal eye becomes adapted to its gloomy situation.”

Source: The Works of Oliver Goldsmith: Poetical works. Dramas. The vicar of Wakefield

“Ambition becomes displeasing when it is once satiated; there is a reaction; and as our spirit, till our last sigh, is always aiming toward some object, it falls back on itself, having nothing else on which to rest; and having reached the summit, it longs to descend.”

Lasts Spirit Fall Objects Ambition Reactions Sigh Summit Fall Back

Author:Pierre Corneille

“There is a native baseness in the ambition which seeks beyond its desert, that never shows more conspicuously than when, no matter how, it temporarily gains its object.”

Matter Shows Objects Ambition Gains Desert Native Baseness

Book:Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside

Source: Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside

“The exercise of letters is sometimes linked to the ambition to construct an absolute book, a book of books that includes the others like a Platonic archetype, an object whose virtues are not diminished by the passage of time.”

Book Sometimes Virtue Objects Exercise Ambition Letters Absolutes Passages Linked Archetype Passage Of Time Platonic

Author:Jorge Luis Borges

“Who has courage to say no again and again to desires, to despise the objects of ambition, who is a whole in himself, smoothed and rounded.”

Whole Desire Loss Courage Objects Discipline Ambition Despise Again And Again Weight Loss Have Courage

Book:Horace for English Readers: Being a Translation of the Poems of Quintus Horatius Flaccus Into English Prose

Source: Horace for English Readers: Being a Translation of the Poems of Quintus Horatius Flaccus Into English Prose

“Elections to office, which are the great objects of ambition, I look at with terror!”

Looks Objects Revolution Office Ambition Election Terror American Revolution

Author:John Adams

“There never was yet a people who must not have somebody or something to represent the dignity of the state, the majesty of the people, call it what you will - a doge, an avoyer, an archon, a president, a consul, a syndic; this becomes at once an object of ambition and dispute, and, in time, of division, faction, sedition, and rebellion.”

People States President Objects Ambition Dignity Rebellion Division Disputes Majesty Factions

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

“There is, however, another purpose to which academies contribute. When they consist of a limited number of persons, eminent for their knowledge, it becomes an object of ambition to be admitted on their list.”

Persons Purpose Numbers Objects Ambition Lists Academy

Book:Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes

Source: Reflections on the Decline of Science in England, and on Some of Its Causes

“Object to merit and distinction, and you're setting your face against quality, independence, originality, genius against all the richness and variety of life. When you hold back the successful, you penalize those who need help.”

Needs Helping Faces Quality Successful Objects Genius Ambition Independence Setting Settings Variety Merit Distinction Your Face Originality Richness Need Help

Book:The collected speeches of Margaret Thatcher

Source: The collected speeches of Margaret Thatcher

“The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.”

Objects Ambition Absolutes Appearance Impossibility

Author:Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Of all the inanimate objects, of all men's creations, books are the nearest to us for they contain our very thoughts, our ambitions, our indignations, our illusions, our fidelity to the truth, and our persistent leanings to error. But most of all they resemble us in their precious hold on life.”

Men Book Creation Objects Ambition Illusion Errors Persistent Fidelity Indignation Inanimate Objects

Author:Joseph Conrad

“I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion. Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos, which is a piece of nonsense no one could experience, but hatred, a virulent hatred for an unnamed object...Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today's intellectual field, they call themselves "pro-life".”

Source: The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z

“The loved object is simply one that has shared an experience at the same moment of time, narcissistically; and the desire to be near the beloved object is at first not due to the idea of possessing it, but simply to let the two experiences compare themselves, like reflections in different mirrors. All this may precede the first look, kiss, or touch; precede ambition, pride, or envy; precede the first declarations which mark the turning point—for from here love degenerates into habit, possession, and back to loneliness.”

Source: The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea

“Not merely hope, but any burdensome yearning: ambition, hatred, love (especially love) - how rarely do our emotions meet the object they seem to deserve? How hopelessly we signal; how dark the sky; how big the waves. We are all lost at see, washed between hope and despair, hailing something that may never come to rescue us. Catastrophe has become art; but this is no reducing process. It is freeing, enlarging, explaining. Catastrophe has become art: that is, after all, what it is for.”

Source: A History Of The World In 10 1/2 Chapters