Quotes
Quotes about Ambition
I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels.
'T is a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend.
When that the poor have cried, Cæsar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
Thine own life's means!
O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
Who does i' the wars more than his captain can
Becomes his captain's captain; and ambition,
The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
Than gain which darkens him.
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Such joy ambition finds.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
What is your sex's earliest, latest care,
Your heart's supreme ambition? To be fair.
Low ambition and the thirst of praise.
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!
Ambition has no risk.
Ambition
Is like the sea wave, which the more you drink
The more you thirst--yea--drink too much, as men
Have done on rafts of wreck--it drives you mad.
On what strange stuff Ambition feeds!
"Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied, "and the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision."
The vicar's right; he says that we
Are ever wayward, weak and blind;
He tells us in his homily
Ambition ruins all mankind;
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.
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.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
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.
