534 Ambition Quotes

What am I in the eyes of most people - a nonentity, an eccentric, or an unpleasant person - somebody who has no position in society and will never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then - even if that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart. That is my ambition, based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Though I am often in the depths of misery, there is still calmness, pure harmony and music inside me. I see paintings or drawings in the poorest cottages, in the dirtiest corners. And my mind is driven towards these things with an irresistible momentum.

If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.

Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.

We stole their babes and mothers, chiefs and braves Although we held the whip, you knew we were The real slaves To alchemy, human alchemy.

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

I wanted to be the first to win three Oscars, but Miss Hepburn has done it. Actually it hasn't been done. Miss Hepburn only won half an Oscar. If they'd given me half an Oscar I would have thrown it back in their faces. You see, I'm an Aries. I never lose.

This has always been a motto of mine: Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.

That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.

It seems beyond the comprehension of people that someone can be born to draw comic strips, but I think I was. My ambition from earliest memory was to produce a daily comic strip.

The office of the Vice-President is a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining.

I always wanted to be a rock star. That was my childhood dream. That's what I told everybody I was going to be when I grew up.

It took me years to figure out that you don't fall into a tub of butter, you jump for it.

After a while the press of business in the province put an end to our philosophizing, and I returned with increased determination to my plans to fly to the Moon.

Are we not madder than those first inhabitants of the plain of Sennar? We know that the distance separating the earth from the sky is infinite, and yet we do not stop building our tower.

The hardest thing is to go to sleep at night, when there are so many urgent things needing to be done. A huge gap exists between what we know is possible with today's machines and what we have so far been able to finish.

Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.

Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

Some day I'm going to climb Everest.

Ambition! powerful source of good and ill!

Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.

No one ever gets far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day.

I want to do everything in the world that can be done.

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.

The Spanish voyager, as his caravel ploughed the adjacent seas, might give full scope to his imagination, and dream that beyond the long, low margin of forest which bounded his horizon lay hid a rich harvest for some future conqueror; perhaps a second Mexico with its royal palace and sacred pyramids, or another Cuzco with its temple of the Sun, encircled with a frieze of gold. Haunted by such visions, the ocean chivalry of Spain could not long stand idle.

If it had been possible to build the Tower of Babel without climbing it, it would have been permitted.

The concept of Queen is to be regal and majestic. Glamour is part of us, and we want to be dandy.

My nature is that I have to excite myself with a big challenge.

A man is a man to the extent that he is a superman. A man should be defined by the sum of those tendencies which impel him to surpass the human condition.

I'm in a weird band. We've done very well. The American Dream is alive and well.

Can you picture my specific plan?/to be the man in this wicked land,underhanded hits are planned/Scams are plotted over grams and rocks/Outlawz, mothafuckers die by the random shots

Been tryin to make a million, by hustlin since my adolescense/From crack dealin to rap villian, my new profession

Dangerous and ambitious, while schemin on gettin riches/I'm spittin at tricks cause I'm addicted to pretty bitches

Lace em with lyrics that's legendary, musical mercenary/For money, I'll have these motherfuckers buried

Hopin you listenin, catch you payin attention/to my ambitions as a ridah

My lyrics are blueprints to money makin/phat as that ass that honey shakin

There must be another route, way out/To money and fame, I changed my name/And played a different game

I don't know why I'm even on this track/Y'all niggas ain't even on my level

You ask why, don't matter, my pockets got fatter/Now everybody's looking for the latter

When I die, I wanna be a livin legend, say my name/Affiliated with this motherfuckin game, with no more pain

Go where the others have gone, to the tenebrous limit for the golden fleece of void, your ultimate prize go upright among those who are on their knees among those turning their backs on and those fallen to dust

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

An experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often quite picturesque liar.

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.

I wanna be the King of America!

But exceed! exceed!

From Hallaj, I learned to hunt lions, but I became something hungrier than a lion.

From humble Port to imperial Tokay.

I'd give a year of my life if I could hit a homerun on opening day of this great new park.

I put my pants on just like the rest of you - one leg at a time. Except, once my pants are on, I make gold records.

To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.

Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life.

If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.

Be fit for more than the thing you are now doing. Let everyone know that you have a reserve in yourself; that you have more power than you are now using. If you are not too large for the place you occupy, you are too small for it.

Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and the most honorable adventure.

Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.

Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.

I never read the life of any important person without discovering that he knew more and could do more than I could ever hope to know or do in half a dozen lifetimes.

We thought we'd be really big in Liverpool.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

Go where glory waits thee, But while fame elates thee, Oh! still remember me!

I started out by believing God for a newer car than the one I was driving. I started out believing God for a nicer apartment than I had. Then I moved up.

Audacibus annue coeptis

Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set.

I shall not return to Constantinople until I have conquered Egypt!

If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough.

The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth.

When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, I need more out of my life and I need to push myself harder. And if at the end of the day I don't have it, then I don't have it, but at least I'm going to put myself out there. If I fail, I'm going to fail terrifically.

Resign, v. To renounce an honor for an advantage. To renounce an advantage for a greater advantage.

Youth, n. The Period of Possibility, when Archimedes finds a fulcrum, Cassandra has a following and seven cities compete for the honor of endowing a living Homer.

'My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.'

'Prometheus is reaching out for the stars with an empty grin on his face.'

It's a great country, where anybody can grow up to be president... except me.

Yes, I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole.

Beware of endeavouring to become a great man in a hurry. One such attempt in ten thousand may succeed: these are fearful odds.

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

Life is too short to be small.

When I want to read a novel, I write one.

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

What strikes me most singular in you is, that you are fonder of Power than of Fame.

I dreamt for years about making albums and doing world tours-I'd fulfilled all my ambitions in one year.

'Fools!' said the man, stamping his foot with rage. 'That is the sort of talk that brought me here, and I'd better have been drowned or never born. Do you hear what I say? This is where dreams - dreams, do you understand - come to life, come real. Not daydreams: dreams.' (ch. 12)

I'm anxious to have a really terrific act. Whatever it takes, it takes.

It is not enough to teach our young people to be successful... so they can realize their ambitions, so they can earn good livings, so they can accumulate the material things that this society bestows. Those are worthwhile goals. But it is not enough to progress as individuals while our friends and neighbors are left behind.

We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community...Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.

Always go for the highest position, it is generally the least crowded.

Why do you think that at 67 I would start a career as a dictator ?

Ambition, I've found, can lead only to failure. I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you.

'Take what you can from your dreams, make them as real as anything.'

Methinks I am like a man, who having struck on many shoals, and having narrowly escap'd shipwreck in passing a small frith, has yet the temerity to put out to sea in the same leaky weather-beaten vessel, and even carries his ambition so far as to think of compassing the globe under these disadvantageous circumstances.