Home / Topics / Ambition Quotes

Ambition Quotes

Browse 3325 quotes about Ambition.

Ambition Quotes

“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.”

Stills Earth Sky Son Mountain Ambition Laughter Raises Vain Toil Madmen Surveys My Ambition

Book:The Works of Alexander Pope Esq

Source: The Works of Alexander Pope Esq

“The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt.”

Growth Wealth Results Effort Achievement Ambition England Strive Busy Circles France Vain Continents Multitudes Expansion Competence New England Toiling

Book:Pioneers of France in the New World

Source: Pioneers of France in the New World

“There are women vain of advantages not connected with their persons, such as birth, rank, and fortune; it is difficult to feel less the dignity of the sex. The origin of all women may be called celestial, for their power is the offspring of the gifts of Nature; by yielding to pride and ambition they soon destroy the magic of their charms.”

Feels May Persons Sex Difficult Magic Pride Birth Ambition Advantage Dignity Fortune Connected Vanity Vain Charm Celestial Offspring

Author:Madame de Stael

“The source of each accordant strain Lies deeper than the Poet's brain. First from the people's heart must spring The passions which he learns to sing; They are the wind, the harp is he, To voice their fitful melody,-- The language of their varying fate, Their pride, grief, love, ambition, hate,-- The talisman which holds inwrought The touchstone of the listener's thought; That penetrates each vain disguise, And brings his secret to his eyes.”

Source: The Poems

“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

“Birds sing in vain to the ear, flowers bloom in vain to the eye, of mortified vanity and galled ambition. He who would know repose in retirement must carry into retirement his destiny, integral and serene, as the Caesars transported the statue of Fortune into the chamber they chose for their sleep.”

Knows Eye Sleep Destiny Flower Solitude Ambition Bird Ears Fortune Vanity Vain Retirement Statues Chamber Repose Serene Blooming Flower

Author:Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

“Vain the ambition of kings Who seek by trophies and dead things To leave a living name behind, And weave but nets to catch the wind.”

Life Names Behinds Wind Kings Ambition Vain Trophies

Author:John Webster

“All the wants which disturb human life, which make us uneasy to ourselves, quarrelsome with others, and unthankful to God, which weary us in vain labors and foolish anxieties, which carry us from project to project, from place to place in a poor pursuit of we don't know what, are the wants which neither God, nor nature, nor reason hath subjected us to, but are solely infused into us by pride, envy, ambition, and covetousness.”

Source: A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life ; The Spirit of Love

“Eleanor Roosevelt is a political force of enormous ambitions. I believe she is a menace, unscrupulous as to truth, vain and cynical - all with a pretense of exaggerated kindness and human feeling which deceives millions of gullible persons.”

Believe Humans Persons Feelings Political Force I Believe Kindness Millions Ambition Enormous Vain Cynical Deceiving Pretense Exaggerated Menace Eleanor Gullible

Author:Westbrook Pegler

“Ambition, idly vain; revenge and malice swell her train.”

Ambition Train Revenge Vain Malice

Author:Roger Penrose

“To be ambitious of true honor and of the real glory and perfection of our nature is the very principle and incentive of virtue; but to be ambitious of titles, place, ceremonial respects, and civil pageantry, is as vain and little as the things are which we court”

Inspirational Littles Real Principles Virtue Honor Ambition Glory Perfection Court Vain Titles Ambitious Incentives Pageantry

Author:Philip Sidney

“The aim of life is some way of living, as flexible and gentle as human nature; so that ambition may stoop to kindness, and philosophy to condor and humor. Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.”

“Empty me of the selfishness inside, every vain ambition and the poison of my pride, and any foolish thing my heart holds to, Lord empty me of me so I can be filled with you.”

Heart I Can Christian Lord Pride My Heart Ambition Empty Filled Christian Inspirational Foolish Selfishness Vain Poison

Author:Chris Sligh

“Although Poets are vain and ambitious, their vanity and ambition are of the purest kind attainable in this world. They are ambitious to be accepted for what they altimately are as revealed in their poetry.”

World Kind This World Poet Ambition Accepted Vanity Vain Ambitious

Author:Stephen Spender