Quotes About Ambition

It was the usual story of penniless young men, who think themselves obliged by their birth to choose a liberal profession and bury themselves in a sort of vain mediocrity, happy even when they escape starvation, notwithstanding their numerous degrees.

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.

No, I do not weep at the world. I'm too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

She wanted to struggle with life but it seemed to elude her.

But any man who walks in the way of power and property is bound to meet hate.

Sometimes she stuck out into the future, imagining her life different from what is was.

for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you....

It would be against all nature for all the Negroes to be either at the bottom, top, or in between. We will go where the internal drive carries us like everybody else. It is up to the individual.

Jump at the sun. You might not land on the sun, but at least you'll get off the ground.

Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon—for no matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you—and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter's neck tight enough to choke her.

De man dat built things oughta boss it. Let colored folks build things too if dey wants to crow over somethin'.

De object wuz tuh git dere. So Ah got up on de high stool lak she told me, but Pheoby, Ah done nearly languished tuh death up dere.

I am striving desperately for a toe-hold on the world.

But nothin' can stop you from wishin'.

You won't git far and you won't be long, when dat big gut reach over and grab dat little one

She didn't read books so she didn't know that she was the world and the heavens boiled down to a drop. Man attempting to climb to painless heights from his dung hill.

He's got uh throne in de seat of his pants.

While I was in the research field in 1929, the idea of Jonah's Gourd Vine came to me. I had written a few short stories, but the idea of attempting a book seemed so big that I gazed at it in the quiet of the night, but hid it away from even myself in daylight.

The woman took the faded shirt and muddy overalls and laid them away from remembrance. It was a weapon against her strength and if it turned out of no significance, still it was a hope that she might fall to their level some day.

It's bad to have some power, but not enough.

I dreamt of traversing the globe in fancy boots, only to discover I was a mouse on a treadmill.

How can a nation speak with one voice if they are not one? Don't forget, now. If you do, you encourage all the stupid but greedy and ambitious to sprout like toadstools and that's the end of right and reason in the state. Coddling and wheedling is not going to stop these destroyers. To a haughty belly, kindness is hard to swallow and harder to digest.

Ships at a distance have every mans' wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, ever landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.