“You think me ambitious: ambition, alas! is composed of more rugged materials. If I were ambitious, I should not for so many years have been a prey to all the hell of conscientious scruples.”

— Horace Walpole, book The Castle of Otranto

Section 3
The Castle of Otranto (1764)

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Horace Walpole33

English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian and Whig… 1717–1797

James Richardson (1950) American poet

#412
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten Second Essays (2001)

“I think the difference between me and some of the other YBAs [Young British Artists] was that I was ambitious for the work, and not ambitious for myself.”

Rachel Whiteread (1963) British sculptor

As quoted in "Still breaking the mould" by Gordon Burn in The Guardian (11 October 2005)

“I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Interview with the Associated Press (18 January 2001)
2000s, 2001

“I am an ambitious person and I consider myself as still quite young and I am convinced that I still have time to realize my ambitions.”

Petro Poroshenko (1965) Ukrainian businessman and politician

Interview to "Ukrains'ka Pravda" https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2009/01/26/3692330/ (26 January 2009)

“An intelligent woman herself, the Duchess had overestimated the Marshal’s intelligence. Not an ambitious woman, she had underestimated his ambition. So are many misread by other’s lights.”

Sheri S. Tepper (1929–2016) American fiction writer

Source: Singer from the Sea (1999), Chapter 11, “Various Visitations” (p. 174)

“"A man's life is happy," says Pascal, "if he begins by being in love and ends by being ambitious." It will be still happier if, after all his ambitions have been satisfied, it ends in tranquility.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

“Ambitious dabblers in sorcery add much to the hell that is on earth.”

Michael Shea book Nifft the Lean

Part 3, Chapter 14 (p. 191)
Nifft the Lean (1982)

“I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best.”

Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor

“You don’t quench ambition by feeding it any more than you quench a fire the same way,” said Cletus. “To an ambitious man, what he already has is nothing. It’s what he doesn’t have that counts.”

Gordon R. Dickson book Tactics of Mistake

Source: Tactics of Mistake (1971), Chapter 16 (p. 280)

“Don't be too ambitious. Do the most important thing you can think of doing every year and then your career will take care of itself.”

Henry Kissinger (1923–2023) United States Secretary of State

“You think me ambitious: ambition, alas! is composed of more rugged materials. If I were ambitious, I should not for so many years have been a prey to all the hell of conscientious scruples.”

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