Quotes About Ambition

As Pushkin put it: He had no itch to dig for glories deep in the dirt that time has laid.

I'm not totally uncompetitive. It's just that for some reason I never cared all that much whether I beat others or lost to them. This sentiment remained pretty much unchanged after I grew up. It doesn't matter what field you're talking about -- beating somebody else just doesn't do it for me. I'm much more interested in whether I reach the goals that I set for myself, so in this sense long-distance running is the perfect fit for a mindset like mine.

I could do just about anything if somebody made me. But I don't have an image of the one thing I really want to do. That's my problem now. I can't find the image... I'm standing still, and I can't find the image. - Toru

No, even I know better than that. I'm looking for selfishness. Perfect selfishness.

Anyone in their right mind would never undertake to write a novel in the first place. Given the circumstances, therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to be deranged as long as you are aware of that fact.

He had no itch to dig for glories Deep in the dirt that time has laid.

Nobody ever recommended or even desired that I be a novelist - in fact, some tried to stop me. I had the idea to be one, and that's what I did.

You're scared because you expect a lot from yourself and you're afraid you'll underperform.

A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline.

People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be.

People become successful the minute they decide to.

It depends. Are you going to be a high school basketball star?" "Probly," I said, scratching at a scab. "I'm pretty good already.

Problems begin the moment we're born. We're born with infinite possibilities, only to give up on one after another. To choose one thing means to give up another. That's inevitable. But what can you do? That's what it is to live.

People who design machines and airplanes {or buildings}, no matter how much they believe that what they do is good, the winds of time eventually turn them into tools of industrial civilization. They're cursed dreams. Animation, too. Beautiful yet cursed dreams.

Today, all of humanity's dreams are cursed somehow. Beautiful yet cursed dreams.

To die with something to live for

If they wanted to have time to read a book in the evenings, that was as important as any of Napoleon's ambitions. Because what a triumph it was for any woman to have time for herself—and to be able to do something that benefitted her imagination alone.

We had started thinking of ourselves not in terms of things that we had done, but in terms of what we were going to do.

I became the man that I am in order to look down on people. That's why a doctor found a vaccine for smallpox, you know, not because he was interested in helping out all those sick people, but because he wanted to make all his doctor friends jealous.

Do not think of todays failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow.

Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.

On Power: It is for us to pray not for tasks equal to our powers, but for powers equal to our tasks, to go forward with a great desire forever beating at the door of our hearts as we travel toward our distant goal.

One cannot consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

Life has two rules: #1 Never quit #2 Always remember rule # 1. "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.