Quotes About Ambition

You have to know what you want to get it.

It is shallow desires which make a young man bold; strong desires confound him.

When a man gets it into his head to do something, and when he exclusively occupies himself in that design, he must succeed, whatever the difficulties. That man will become Grand Vizier or Pope.

Alle sembianze il Padre, alle amene sembianze eterno regno diè alle genti; e per virili imprese, per dotta lira o canto, virtù non luce in disadorno ammanto.

Los hombres ambiciosos que afectan señoría en sus ciudades, ábrense en ellas rumbo mostrándose parciales de la muchedumbre, y halagándola con ciertos simulacros o apariencias de libertad.

In una vita così strema e consunta, la mia ambizione più urgente sarebbe quella di scrivere qualcosa che potesse intitolarsi, proprio letteralmente, De Amicitia. [...] Essere un amico concreto, non so se la mia vita potrà mai proporsi altri scopi. Aspirazione estrema, e chi sa se raggiungibile.

I have a fantastic relationship with money. I use it to buy my freedom.

I am not interested in the past, except as the road to the future.

He merely added that often you don't do what you would have liked to do in life, but that what you'd like to do isn't necessarily what you would be good at doing. Which, needless to say, is true.

Thank God for competition. When our competitors upset our plans or outdo our designs, they open infinite possibilities of our own work to us.

His voice went flat. "They criticized me," he said. "The criticized me for the way I went about things, my dreams." His voice became like still water, like a nest of sleeping snakes, and you could feel the mad wrath contained within that voice. "They always criticized me, even when I did big things. I'm doing a big thing now. They won't criticize me. If they do, I'll kill them. Ignorance. There's no room for it in my plans. No room.

Get a better job, Harve. Ask for a raise. Good Lord, we aren't living. We're existing!

I want to be the best in whatever I do.

I try not to do the fantasy thing. If I didn't get hurt, what would I be? Who knows? When I look back on my career, from the hard work I put in, I got everything I deserved.

I decided one day early on in high school that I wanted to be great at basketball, not just a good basketball player. I would go to the elementary school by my house and shoot thousands of shots all day, every day.

To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.

A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher. A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the energy to wish to pass beyond it. A small artist is content with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything.

I was also feeding off a more general depression that sometimes settled over Kampala evenings. You had a sense of people not having gotten what they wanted during the day. The street vendors, for instance

There again, the acceleration of history is the job of ruthless men.

Just remember, you can do anything you set your mind to, but it takes action, perseverance, and facing your fears

Writers definitely need spurs.

Ask a woman if she's ambitious and she'll look at you as if you just asked whether she sticks pins in puppies for fun. Ask a woman if she's competitive and she'll look at you as if you suggested that she's a hooker.

I didn't want who I was now to be the most I'd ever be.

Few experiences are more satisfying than becoming someone we always imagined we could be.