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We
grow small trying to be great.
E.
Stanley
Jones
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| Beware of ambition!
It's one of the true double-edged swords. . . . depending
upon how we define it, it may be one of our great motivators that
helps us to
grow and learn and become who we're meant to be, or one of our great
destroyers
that holds us down and turns us into something we never imagined, in
our worst
nightmares, that we ever would become as human beings. |
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It
is the nature of ambition to make people liars and cheats, to hide the
truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in
their
mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their
own
interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good
will.
Sallust
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It
is the constant fault and inseparable evil
quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.
Seneca
Ambition
is so powerful a passion in the human breast,
that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
Niccolò
Machiavelli
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Noble
people compare and estimate themselves by an idea
which is higher than themselves; and a mean person,
by one lower than him- or herself. The one produces aspiration;
the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar person
aspires.
Henry
Ward Beecher
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The
very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
William
Shakespeare
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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.
Philip
Sidney
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There is another more subtle way in which the
innocence
of childhood is lost: when the child is infected with the
desire to become somebody. Contemplate the crowds of
people who are
striving might and main to become, not
what Nature intended them to
be-- musicians, cooks,
mechanics, carpenters, gardeners, inventors--
but
"somebody": to become successful, famous, powerful;
to become
something that will bring not quiet and
self-fulfillment, but
self-glorification and self-expansion.
Tony deMello
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Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but
grows
more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.
Thomas Otway
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All
ambitions are lawful except those which
climb upward on the miseries or credulities of humankind.
Joseph
Conrad |
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Fling
away ambition. By that sin angels fell. How then can
humans, the image of their Maker, hope to win by it?
William Shakespeare (attributed) |
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Ambition is the last refuge
of failure.
Oscar Wilde |
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Most people would succeed
in small things if
they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow
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Ambition is like
hunger; it obeys no law but its appetite.
Henry Wheeler Shaw
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It is by attempting to
reach the top at a single leap that so much misery is produced
in the world.
William Cobbett |
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What is ambition but
desire of greatness?
And what is greatness but extent of power?
Thomas Higgons
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Like
dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain,
ambitious people still climb and climb, with great labor,
and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.
Robert Burton |
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Oh, it's delightful
to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot.
And there never seems to be any end to them--that's the best of it.
Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one
glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting.
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Anne of Green Gables
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A wise person is cured of
ambition by ambition itself; one's aim is
so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favor cannot satisfy him
or her.
Jean La Bruyere |
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Undoubtedly, ambition stands in the way of more people's contentment and happiness
than almost anything else. The foolish determination to do what others do, to get ahead of others and to be able to live as they do, to have the luxuries and comforts of people who are better off than
they—this over-vaulting ambition is one of the great happiness enemies.
It is a false ambition which keeps us pulling and hauling and straining to do something which somebody else has done, not because we need it ourselves, not because it would add a particle to our comfort or real welfare, or because it is really worth while, but because we are eaten up with the canker of an over-vaulting ambition, the chief element of which is selfishness, the desire to outshine others, to outdo them, to get ahead of them, to live a little better off than they, to have a little better home, a little better house in a little better part of the town, to dress our children a little better, to surround ourselves with more luxuries.
But, after all, are these things really helpful, are they really worth while?
Growth, enlargement of life, enrichment of one's nature —these are the things that are worth while.
It is the ambition to be a human, to stand for more in the community, to push our horizon of ignorance farther and farther away from us, to think a little higher each day, to think a little more of ourselves, to have a little more faith in ourselves and in everybody else, an ambition to be of real use in the world, which, if achieved, will bring contentment and true happiness.
Orison
Swett Marden
The Joys of Living (1913) |
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Ambition makes the same mistake
concerning power that avarice
makes concerning wealth. It begins by accumulating power as a
means
to happiness, and finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an
end.
Charles
Caleb Colton |
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Wisdom
is corrupted by ambition, even when the quality
of
the ambition is intellectual. For ambition even of
this
quality, is but a form of self-love.
Henry Taylor
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If
you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace
to stop at the second or even the third place.
Cicero |
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The
desire to reach for the stars is ambitious.
The desire to reach hearts is wise.
Maya Angelou |
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Yes, the
truth is that people's ambition and their desire to make money
are among the most frequent causes of deliberate acts of injustice.
Aristotle
Politics |
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Intelligence without ambition
is a bird without wings.
Salvador Dalí |
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The biggest
changes in a woman's nature are brought by love; in man, by ambition.
Rabindranath
Tagore |
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People who are intelligently
ambitious are always looking at the wider
picture. They look for opportunities to contribute. They
look for
what needs to be done.
Nathaniel
Branden
Self-Esteem
Every Day |
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If people hold
no ambitions in this world, they suffer unknowingly.
If people hold ambitions, they suffer knowingly, but very slowly.
Alan Lightman
Einstein's Dreams |
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I've never done
anything for the sake of ambition that I regret. . . .
Ambition can look very good on some women. If you find the
whole
world hates you for it, then sure, stop raising your hand in class--
but be sure to the the A anyway.
Joni Evans |
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In
their hurry to attain some ambition, to gratify the dream of life,
people often throw honor, truth, and generosity to the winds.
William G. Jordan |
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Our
ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one
of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do
more.
Oscar Wilde |
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There
was no more dangerous kind of madman than one who devoted
a good brain and a courageous heart to unhealthy ambitions.
Michael Moorcock
The City in the Autumn Stars |
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Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition
even if it be only the
apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and
discoveries.
Mary Shelley |
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Ambition
renders the mind restless. If the ambition is not realized,
the mind is filled with depression and anxieties.
The ambitious person has no peace of mind.
Sivananda |
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We
have tried the ways of ambition, of self-aggrandizement, of
aggressive
opportunism, and we have seen the kind of flimsy success to which
they lead;
we have tasted the bitter poisons they generate, we have known the
conflict,
the disgust, the inner division, the outer isolation that follow in
their wake.
Gregory Vlastos |
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No
ambition is spiritual. All ambitions or for the sake of the
"I am." If
you want to make real progress you must give up the idea of personal
attainment. The ambitions of so-called spiritual teachers are
preposterous.
Nisargadatta |
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Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power,
that avarice
makes as to wealth. She begins by accumulating it as a means
of
happiness, and finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
Charles Caleb Colton |
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Ambition
is the first curse: the great tempter of the person who is
rising above his or her fellows. It is the simplest form of
looking for a reward. . . Yet it is a necessary teacher.
Mabel Collins |
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If
you pride yourself on your ambition, take a mental inventory of
its ends, and ask yourself whether you desire to attain those
personal ends and forego the opportunities of being happy.
Walter B. Wolfe |
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