Quotes About Ambition

Those who have succeeded in procuring this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without uneasiness, — places, sinecures, dignities, power, whether well or ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory capitulations of conscience, — and that they shall enter the tomb with their digestion accomplished.

Success; that is the lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption. Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false resemblance to merit deceives men.

Did not i say that things would come right of themselves? said the Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, To him who contents himself with the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop. Monseigneur, murmured the cure, throwing back his head with a smile. God or the Devil.

The senator...was a smart man who had made his way in life with a single-mindedness oblivious to any of those stumbling blocks known as conscience, sworn oaths, justice, duty...

Ah! indeed he must not be mounted. It does not suit his ideas to be a saddle-horse. Every one has his ambition. 'Draw? Yes. Carry? No.' We must suppose that is what he said to himself.

Soit dit en passant, c'est une chose assez hideuse que le succès. Sa fausse ressemblance avec le mérite trompe les hommes.

Who knows how easily ambition disguises itself under the name of a calling, possibly in good faith and deceiving itself, in sanctimonious confusion?

We live in a sad society. Succeed - that is the advice which falls drop by drop from the overhanging corruption.

Ma non basta essere cattivi, per prosperare.

El éxito es algo bastante repulsivo. El falso parecido que tiene con el mérito engaña a los hombres.

Machiavel a fait des petits. Louis Bonaparte en est un.

Dans ses entreprises il a besoin d'aides et de collaborateurs ; il lui faut ce qu'il appelle lui-même « des hommes ». Diogène les cherchait tenant une lanterne, lui il les cherche un billet de banque à la main.

Every profession has its aspirants who make up the cortège of those who are at the summit.

But the very progress of the human race may be halted because of a desire to sit down too soon. This has often been the failing of the bourgeoisie.

La vejez no hace presa en los genios de lo ideal; para los Dante y los Miguel Ángel, envejecer es crecer; para los Aníbal y los Bonaparte, ¿es menguar?

You can be anything you want. But you have to take a risk sometimes. Reach out.

Ever since you were a girl, you've been running for what you wanted... Now you're lost, but you're still running full speed... How will you ever figure out what you want when everything is a blur?

Your're successful beyond your wildest dreams and it still isn't enough?

You see things and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were And say, 'Why not?'" —George Bernard Shaw

Loreda didn't want the kind of love that trapped. She wanted to be told she could fly high, be anything and go anywhere.

She hadn't realized how much she'd needed a dream, but it had transformed her, changed her from poor motherless and abandoned Tully to a girl poised to take on the world. The goal made her life story unimportant, gave her something to reach for, to hang on to

How do you keep hold of a dream like that?" "With both hands.

He should know better than to dream so big and to give voice to those dreams.

She tucked her chin, squared her shoulders, and set a new goal for herself.