Sunday, April 12, 2015 – The Ambitious Ones
A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumor. ~ Aldous Huxley
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration, the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires. ~ Marcus Aurelius
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favor cannot satisfy him. ~ Samuel Johnson
All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority otherwise called ambition. ~ Cesare Pavese
Ambition – it is the last infirmity of noble minds. ~ James M. Barrie
Ambition aspires to descend. ~ Pierre Corneille
Ambition is a Dead Sea fruit, and the greatest peril to the soul is that one is likely to get precisely what he is seeking. ~ Edward Dahlberg
Ambition is a dream with a V-8 engine. ~ Elvis Presley
Ambition is a drug that makes its addicts potential madmen. ~ Emile M. Cioran
Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment. ~ Thomas Otway
Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked. ~ Walter Savage Landor
Ambition is not a vice of little people. ~ Michel de Montaigne
Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure. ~ Oscar Wilde
Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping. ~ A. C. Benson
Ambition: An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead. ~ Ambrose Bierce
At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since. ~ Salvador Dalí
I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office. ~ Thomas Jefferson
I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. ~ Thomas Carlyle
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. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I’d place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs. ~ Horace Walpole
The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition. ~ Marquis De Vauvenargues
The psychoanalysis of neurotics has taught us to recognize the intimate connection between wetting the bed and the character trait of ambition. ~ Sigmund Freud
What is my loftiest ambition? I’ve always wanted to throw an egg at an electric fan. ~ Oliver Herford
What likelihood is there of corrupting a man who has no ambition? ~ Samuel Richardson
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. ~ Timothy Leary
I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay. ~ Madonna
I do not fear failure. I only fear the “slowing up” of the engine inside of me which is pounding, saying, “Keep going, someone must be on top, why not you?” ~ General George S. Patton
Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be. ~ Bob Dylan
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ~ Milan Kundera
Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust. ~ John Webster
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition. ~ Carl Sagan
Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it. ~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld
An ounce of hypocrisy is worth a pound of ambition. ~ Michael Korda
I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night – there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest. ~ Marilyn Monroe
There is a time in the life of every boy when he for the first time takes the backward view of life. Perhaps that is the moment when he crosses the line into manhood. The boy is walking through the street of his town. He is thinking of the future and of the figure he will cut in the world. Ambitions and regrets awake within him. Suddenly something happens; he stops under a tree and waits as for a voice calling his name. Ghosts of old things creep into his consciousness; the voices outside of himself whisper a message concerning the limitations of life. From being quite sure of himself and his future he becomes not at all sure. If he be an imaginative boy a door is torn open and for the first time he looks out upon the world, seeing, as though they marched in procession before him, the countless figures of men who before his time have come out of nothingness into the world, lived their lives and again disappeared into nothingness. The sadness of sophistication has come to the boy. With a little gasp he sees himself as merely a leaf blown by the wind through the streets of his village. He knows that in spite of all the stout talk of his fellows he must live and die in uncertainty, a thing blown by the winds, a thing destined like corn to wilt in the sun. ~ Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
Just Above Sunset 