Quotes about ambition
A collection of quotes on the topic of ambition, people, world, other.
Quotes about ambition
“Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine”
Variant: Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.
Source: A Tale of Love and Darkness
Source: Jack: Straight from the Gut (2001), Ch. 24.
“My ambition is handicapped by my laziness.”
Source: Factotum (1975), Ch. 45, Manny
Not Disraeli but La Rochefoucauld; it is Maxim 308 in his Reflections.
Misattributed
Source: A Soldier's Story (1951), p. x.
Second Treatise of Civil Government, Ch. XIX, sec. 222
Two Treatises of Government (1689)
Source: Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936), Ch. 10
Source: 'Letter VII. to Lord John Russell' (30 January 1836), The Letters of Runnymede (1836), pp. 60-61
Source: Alice In Wonderland: Including Alice's Adventures In Wonderland And Through The Looking Glass
“The biggest changes in a women's nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition”
Knox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005)
2005
“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”
As quoted in Third and Possibly the Best 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said (1987) by Robert Byrne, #40
Variant: Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Things the Germans Lack, 51
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Helen Adams Keller (p. 60. Helen Keller's Journal: 1936-1937, Doubleday, Doran & company, inc., 1938)
Source: Girl, Interrupted (1994)
Source: The Angel's Game
Source: Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
While writing on the Beighton Cup held in 1952 and he was playing for the Jhansi Heroes cited in page 35
Quote, India and the Olympics
Address Delivered in Candidacy for the State Legislature (9 March 1832)
1830s
Stellar Moments in Human History [Sternstunden der Menschheit] (1953), p. 280, as translated by Marion Sonnenfeld
Sometimes attributed to Augustine, but is from Phyllis McGinley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_McGinley, The Province of the Heart, "The Honor of Being a Woman" (1959).
Misattributed
La difficoltà di commettere suicidio sta in questo: è un atto di ambizione che si può commettere solo quando si sia superata ogni ambizione.
This Business of Living (1935-1950)
Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
About
Quoted in Notker's The Deeds of Charlemagne (translated 2008 by David Ganz)
December 8, 2010, video posting — www.kgun9.com, 9OYS Investigates: Who is Jared Loughner?, KGUN9, January 8, 2011, 2011-01-10 http://www.kgun9.com/Global/story.asp?S=13809065,
“Ambition is the death of thought.”
Source: Culture and Value (1980), p. 77e
1850s, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society (1859)
2015, Naturalization Ceremony speech (December 2015)
2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Socratic Memorabilia, J. Flaherty, trans. (Baltimore: 1967), p. 147.
Wesleyan Graduation Ceremony, Middletown, Connecticut (25 May 2008) http://www.politico.com/pdf/PPM42_remarks_of_obama.pdf
2008
Source: The Bone House (2011), p. 160
Nobel Lecture (1998)
Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, L. Easton, trans. (1967), p. 36
Reflections of a Youth on Choosing an Occupation (1835)
Section IX, "Man Alone with Himself" / aphorism 534
Human, All Too Human (1878), Helen Zimmern translation
2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)
2012, Re-election Speech (November 2012)
Mr. Muhammad teaches that as soon as we separate from the white man, we will learn that we can do without the white man just as he can do without us. The white man knows that once black men get off to themselves and learn they can do for themselves, the black man's full potential will explode and he will surpass the white man.
Playboy interview, regarding the ambition of the Black Muslims
Attributed
Dans un mois, dans un an (1957, Those Without Shadows, translated 1957)
A Prayer
as quoted in Pushkin, Alexander (2009). Selected Lyric Poetry. Northwestern University Press, p. 199.
1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)
Page 68
Publications, The Shah's Story (1980), On oil and nuclear energy
“The truth is really an ambition which is beyond us.”
As quoted in International Herald Tribune (12 March 1990)
Yet Another Effort, Frenchmen, If You Would Become Republicans
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)
Buffon's Natural History (1797) Vol. 10, pp. 340-341 https://books.google.com/books?id=respAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA340, an English translation of Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804).
Source: Letter to Lord John Manners, referring to the tactics of Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel (17 December 1846), cited in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (Vol. 2) (1913), p. 337-338.
"PM's favourite singer Lana Del Rey ignores the abuse", Evening Standard (24 January 2012), p. 13
Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 180.
2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)
“The lust for power, which of all human vices was found in its most concentrated form in the Roman people as a whole, first established its victory in a few powerful individuals, and then crushed the rest of an exhausted country beneath the yoke of slavery.
For when can that lust for power in arrogant hearts come to rest until, after passing from one office to another, it arrives at sovereignty? Now there would be no occasion for this continuous progress if ambition were not all-powerful; and the essential context for ambition is a people corrupted by greed and sensuality.”
<p>Ipsa libido dominandi, quae inter alia uitia generis humani meracior inerat uniuerso populo Romano, postea quam in paucis potentioribus uicit, obtritos fatigatosque ceteros etiam iugo seruitutis oppressit.</p><p>Nam quando illa quiesceret in superbissimis mentibus, donec continuatis honoribus ad potestatem regiam perueniret? Honorum porro continuandorum facultas non esset, nisi ambitio praeualeret. Minime autem praeualeret ambitio, nisi in populo auaritia luxuriaque corrupto.</p>
as translated by H. Bettenson (1972), Book 1, Chapter 31, p. 42
The City of God (early 400s)
Source: Sylvie and Bruno (1889), Chapter 25 : Looking Eastward
“I have no ambitions nor desires.
To be a poet is not my ambition,
It's simply my way of being alone.”
Não tenho ambições nem desejos
Ser poeta não é uma ambição minha
É a minha maneira de estar sozinho.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos ("The Keeper of Herds", tr. Richard Zenith) in Athena (January 1925)
Book III, 3.39-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book III
Oration on Lafayette (1834)
Context: There have doubtless been, in all ages, men, whose discoveries or inventions, in the world of matter or of mind, have opened new avenues to the dominion of man over the material creation; have increased his means or his faculties of enjoyment; have raised him in nearer approximation to that higher and happier condition, the object of his hopes and aspirations in his present state of existence.
Lafayette discovered no new principle of politics or of morals. He invented nothing in science. He disclosed no new phenomenon in the laws of nature. Born and educated in the highest order of feudal Nobility, under the most absolute Monarchy of Europe, in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities at the moment of attaining manhood, the principle of republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from above. He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty. He came to another hemisphere to defend her. He became one of the most effective champions of our Independence; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have divided us. In the events of our Revolution, and in the forms of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form of government. He wished to add nothing to it.
“From George Washington to Lafayette, 15 August 1786,” Founders Online, National Archives http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-04-02-0200 Source: The Papers of George Washington, Confederation Series, vol. 4, 2 April 1786 – 31 January 1787, ed. W. W. Abbot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995, pp. 214–216. Page scan http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mgw2&fileName=gwpage013.db&recNum=157&tempFile=./temp/~ammem_fmyS&filecode=mgw&next_filecode=mgw&itemnum=1&ndocs=100 at American Memory (Library of Congress)
1780s
Context: Altho’ I pretend to no peculiar information respecting commercial affairs, nor any foresight into the scenes of futurity; yet as the member of an infant-empire, as a Philanthropist by character, and (if I may be allowed the expression) as a Citizen of the great republic of humanity at large; I cannot help turning my attention sometimes to this subject. I would be understood to mean, I cannot avoid reflecting with pleasure on the probable influence that commerce may here after have on human manners & society in general. On these occasions I consider how mankind may be connected like one great family in fraternal ties—I endulge a fond, perhaps an enthusiastic idea, that as the world is evidently much less barbarous than it has been, its melioration must still be progressive—that nations are becoming more humanized in their policy—that the subjects of ambition & causes for hostility are daily diminishing—and in fine, that the period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal & free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations & horrors of war.
The Cup, Act i, Scene 3, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
"I create gods all the time - now I think one might exist" (2008)
Context: Belief was never mentioned at home, but right actions were taught by daily example.
Possibly because of this, I have never disliked religion. I think it has some purpose in our evolution.
I don't have much truck with the "religion is the cause of most of our wars" school of thought because that is manifestly done by mad, manipulative and power-hungry men who cloak their ambition in God.
I number believers of all sorts among my friends. Some of them are praying for me. I'm happy they wish to do this, I really am, but I think science may be a better bet.
De pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis declamatio (1529), translated by Beert C. Verstraete as On Education for Children, in The Erasmus Reader (University of Toronto Press: 1990), p. 73
Often the portion of this passage on "Towering genius..." is quoted without any mention or acknowledgment that Lincoln was speaking of the need to sometimes hold the ambitions of such genius in check, when individuals aim at their own personal aggrandizement rather than the common good.
1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
Context: It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? — Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. — It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.
1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)
Context: There were some schools, so called, but no qualification was ever required of a teacher beyond "readin', writin', and cipherin' " to the rule of three. If a straggler supposed to understand Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, he was looked upon as a wizard. There was absolutely nothing to excite ambition for education. Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three, but that was all. I have not been to school since. The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.
Quicktime excerpt http://www.harappa.com/nehrumov.html
A Tryst With Destiny (1947)
Context: The ambition of the greatest men of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
Often the portion of this passage on "Towering genius..." is quoted without any mention or acknowledgment that Lincoln was speaking of the need to sometimes hold the ambitions of such genius in check, when individuals aim at their own personal aggrandizement rather than the common good.
1830s, The Lyceum Address (1838)
Context: It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion, as others have so done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would inspire to nothing beyond a seat in Congress, a gubernatorial or a presidential chair; but such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? — Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. — It sees no distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time, spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs.
"Obstacles to Happiness", p. 78
Awareness (1992)
Context: Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already. How can you acquire what you already have? Then why don't you experience it? Because you've got to drop something. You've got to drop illusions. You don't have to add anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, your cravings. Do you know where these things come from? From having identified with all kinds of labels!
The Mike Wallace Interview (1958)
Context: Freedom is necessary for two reasons. It's necessary for the individual, because the individual, no matter how good the society is, every individual has hopes, fears, ambitions, creative urges, that transcend the purposes of his society. Therefore we have a long history of freedom, where people try to extricate themselves from tyranny for the sake of art, for the sake of science, for the sake of religion, for the sake of the conscience of the individual — this freedom is necessary for the individual.
“My ambition is always to get better and better.”
On the expanding traits that might be celebrated in women in “When Red Met Jessica Alba” https://www.redonline.co.uk/red-women/interviews/a523393/jessica-alba-cover-interview/ in Red (2016 Jan 7)
"On the Principles of Political Morality that Should Guide the National Convention in the Domestic Administration of the Republic" (5 February 1794)
No Name in the Street (1972)
“A man without ambition is like a bird without wings”
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/10/14/wings/
Cited in De Laugier, Vicissitudes of the Italian people from 1801 to 1815, to. X, Firenze, 1836, p. 43 – Aless. Zanoli, About the Italian army, historical-statistical outline from 1796 to 1814, vol. II, Milano, 1845, p. 145.