Quotes About Ambition

In life, people tend to wait for good things to come to them. And by waiting, they miss out. Usually, what you wish for doesn't fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. This isn't because the universe is cruel. It's because the universe is smart.

There are always a few sad souls who want to be king.

In Desh, you can make your plans, but they usually do not succeed. But in America you make your plans and then they happen.

It wasn't the degree that counted but what you did with it; he believed that too many Americans wasted time and money on college simply for the sake of a fancy piece of paper.

But it's true, 'Rene. Can't you realize that I'm not like you a bit? Why, to get the things I want badly enough, I'd do anything, hurt anybody, throw anything away. Really, 'Rene, I'm not safe." Her voice as well as the look on her face had a beseeching earnestness that made Irene vaguely uncomfortable.

I have imagined Helga Crane as a dancer or, like Larsen herself, a writer, but one who would find a way to devise a more satisfying ending than the script the world had handed her.

I don't know what kind of great I'm bound to be, Dove considered his prospects calmly, all I know for certain is I'm born a world-shaker.

There is no harder worker than a former government employee who has discovered the word incentive.

From a squalid izba to a space capsule—log cabin to the stars. You have to give these people credit where it's due.

Moira nodded. "If what they say is right, we're none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.

Surely my mother could do anything to which she set her mind

You may be able to write a novel, you may not . You will never know until you have worked very hard indeed and written at least part of it. You will never really know until you have written the whole of it and submitted it for publication.

I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or a .400 baseball hitter,' he told the Wall Street Journal. 'But now I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.

Protection Certificate) to open a lemonade stand in New York City?

striving to be a master of the universe

Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson

The word 'network', which was scarcely used before the late nineteenth century, is now overused as both a verb and a noun. To the ambitious young insider, it is always worth going to the next party, no matter how late it is, for the sake of networking. Sleep may be appealing, but the fear of missing out is appalling. To the disgruntled old outsider, on the other hand, the word network has a different connotation.

We have not seen great things done in our time except by those who have been considered mean; the rest have failed.

Alexander never did what he said, Cesare never said what he did.

And in examining their life and deeds it will be seen that they owed nothing to fortune but the opportunity which gave them matter to be shaped into the form that they thought fit; and without that opportunity their powers would have been wasted, and without their powers the opportunity would have come in vain.

Whence we may draw the general axiom, which never or rarely errs, that he who is the cause of another's greatness is himself undone, since he must work either by address or force, each of which excites distrust in the person raised to power.

But while it was their opportunities that made these men fortunate, it was their own merit that enabled them to recognize these opportunities and turn them to account, to the glory and prosperity of their country.

Set down among these lice, this is how I keep the mold from my brain and find release from Fortune's malice. I am content to have her beat me down this way to see if she won't become ashamed.