Quotes About Ambition

any mean, ambitious man,...counts his losses more than his gains.

She did not realize, when her father claimed the throne and her brother won it, that a price must always be paid for power, and it will be paid by her as well as the rest of us. She doesn't realize yet that though men go to war it is women who suffer—perhaps more than anyone.

But to tell you the truth, it is the same for me. I am as envious of her as she is of me. But I have seen her rise and rise.

Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory

Philippa Gregory

Any ninny with an honest heart, a scheming family, and an open purse can do that.

we will put the Howards so high they can never fall.

If women could only have more," I said longingly. "If we could have more in our own right. Being a woman at court is like forever watching a pastrycook at work in the kitchen. All those good things, and you can have nothing.

Even in that short time he had seen that Anne had great power. She did not care if she quarreled with her uncle, or with any of the men at court that could have been her allies. She did not care who hated her, as long as the king was at her beck and call. And she could ruin any man she chose.

That's the thing about wealth and power. Once you've learned to want it—that's all you learn. You don't learn satisfaction, you just want more. There's never enough. You'll never be rich enough, Johnnie, and you'll die in dissatisfaction.

The difference between you and the person you envy, is that you settle for less.

I didn't just come in on a load of turnips!

Nobody gets to be Queen of England by being loveable. You will have to play your cards right.

I felt as if we were fighting something worse than Anne, some demon that possessed her, that possessed all of us Boleyns: ambition - the devil that had brought us to this little room and brought my sister to this insane distress and us to this savage battle.

A woman needs to be economically independent more than she needs a lover or a child.

Well, I know what I want to be too," she told her parents. "An actress on Broadway." "Caroline, you're always onstage, twenty-four hours a day," said her father. "You can't even tie your shoes without making a production of it." Caroline wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not.

I can't believe this is really happening, Caroline said to Wally, both of them wearing their goblin cloaks and hoods. I'm a real actress at last. Do you know where you'll see my name someday? On a tombstone? said Wally. Caroline flashed him a disgusted look. In lights! On Broadway! Someday you and your brothers will go to the movies and see me up there on the screen. If we see you on the screen, we'll ask for our money back, Wally told her.

How many people similarly spent their lives searching for their own spells—some gratuitous benefit such as a silver tree or political power or undeserved acclaim—when all they really needed was to be satisfied with what they already had? Sometimes what they had was better than what they thought they wanted.

Absolutely nobody in the entire United States of America has even a modicum of interest in who I am, but I'm determined to change that. Because if I can pull it off here, then I can kiss goodbye to tedious speeches, crappy TV jobs and all the other nonsense I have to do back in England to pay the bills.

you don't seem to love money too much. And those who haven't made their own money are usually like you. But those who have made it for themselves are twice as fond of it as those who [c] haven't.

Self-love is the source of that ignorant conceit of knowledge which is always doing and never succeeding.

There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs-- which may be forgiven; for every man ought to be loved who says and manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom: at the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are.

All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth