Quotes About Ambition

Despite their similarities, Pratt was a timid executive who lacked Rockefeller's audacity and often felt slighted by him.

John never aspired to popularity at the school.

ad John D. Rockefeller died in 1902, at the outset of the Tarbell series, he would be known today almost exclusively as a narrow man of swashbuckling brilliance in business

For this reason, he found religion far more of a spur than a hindrance to his ambitions.

At one point, Bill suggested that if John didn't find work he might have to return to the country; the thought of such dependence upon his father made "a cold chill" run down his spine, Rockefeller later said.27 Because he approached his job hunt devoid of any doubt or self-pity, he could stare down all discouragement. "I was working every day at my business—the business of looking for work. I put in my full time at this every day.

Nobody ever accused Gates of thinking small.

Another boy might have been crestfallen, but Rockefeller was the sort of stubborn person who only grew more determined with rejection.

Rockefeller embarked on a buying binge such as the industry had never seen.

He embodied an enduring archetype: the obscure immigrant who comes to America, re-creates himself, and succeeds despite a lack of proper birth and breeding.

Hamilton did not think Burr would be a harmless, lackadaisical president. "He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing," Hamilton told Gouverneur Morris. From his legal practice, Hamilton knew that Burr had exorbitant debts and might be susceptible to bribes from foreign governments. He briefed Federalists about the scandals involving Burr and the Holland Company and the gross trickery behind the Manhattan Company.

disse Serena.

He wanted to make the world better, but, according to Rodney, the world wasn't interested.

Lincoln's political grammar always gravitated to the future tense.

Charles Dickens, visiting the United States five years earlier, had described Washington as "the City of Magnificent Intentions,"12 with "spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads, and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete.

America is too great for small dreams.

My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose – somehow we win out.

There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn't mind who gets the credit.

Among the things he passed on to me were the belief that all men and women, regardless of their color or religion, are created equal and that individuals determine their own destiny; that is, it's largely their own ambition and hard work that determine their fate in life.

La insatisfacción de los humanos, ese querer siempre algo más, algo mejor, algo distinto, es el origen de innumerables desdichas.

Hay que convertir la vida en un sueño y volver realidad los sueños.

Ya lo señaló la formidable (y depresiva) Clarice Lispector: «La vocación es diferente del talento. Se puede tener vocación y no tener talento. Es decir, se puede ser llamado sin saber cómo ir».

Ahí reside nuestra grandeza: aun conociendo nuestra insignificancia, aspiramos al máximo. Lo que nos humaniza, lo que nos diferencia de los animales, es precisamente esa desfachatada ambición de ser felices. De controlar nuestras vidas y convertirnos en nuestros propios dioses.

The feudal system was the most perfect social system in history. It even had a safety valve, to release any pressure of energy in it. An exceptional, ambitious, and gifted boy might get his master's permission to learn to read and write, and enter The Church. Church discipline was strict, but The Church represented the spiritual world, and in it, all men were equal. Any priest might become the Pope. A serf's son did become a Pope.

inside of three months had made his way from humble circumstances to the very front rank of American airmen.