Quotes About Ambition

What people respect is one thing, what people envy is the other. What people respect they do not always want to do, be or have. If, then, you want to be respected, and respect yourself, you sometimes need to do more than you want to.

To the person who seizes two things, one always slips from his grasp!

Ad astra per aspera [To the stars through hardships].

At least a bank robber uses his arms to steal money. I am using money to steal an arm.

No one understands and appreciates the American Dream of hard work leading to material rewards better than a non-American.

Anthony C. Winkler

When you see this you will understand how people attempt to gain the world and, in the process, lose their soul.

The great Chinese sage Tranxu puts it marvelously: "When the archer shoots for nothing, he has all his skill. When he shoots for a brass buckle, he is already nervous. When he shoots for a prize of gold, he goes blind. He's out of his mind. He sees two targets. His skill has not changed. But the prize divides him. He cares. He thinks more of winning than of shooting. And the need to win drains him of power.

la gente trata de ganar el mundo y cómo, al hacerlo, pierde su vida. Y es que viven unas vidas vacías, monótonas, sin alma...

I always told my dad I'd play professional football.

Why else do any of this if not to become who we want to be?

They'll say you're too little, Werner, that you're from nowhere, that you shouldn't dream big. But I believe in you. I think you'll do something great.

to write a story is to inch backward and forward along a series of planks you are cantilevering out into the darkness, plank by plank, inch by inch, and the best you can hope is that each day you find yourself a little bit farther out over the abyss.

What was this hunger that drove me to seek more than what I already had?

clinging to a dream he does not want to leave.

What a fool I was. What was this hunger that drove me to seek more than what I already had?

Go," says Volkheimer again. Werner looks at him a last time: his torn jacket and shovel jaw. The tenderness of his big hands. What you could be.

Claude understands that he ought to resent them, but he admires their competence and manners, the clean efficiency with which they move. They always seem to be going somewhere and never doubt that it is the right place to be going. Something his own country has lacked.

Elena?" She'll laugh. She'll tousle Werner's hair; she'll whisper, "They'll say you're too little, Werner, that you're from nowhere, that you shouldn't dream big. But I believe in you. I think you'll do something great.

Prosperity depends on ferocity.

We are young, they sing, we are steadfast, we have never compromised, we have so many castles yet to storm.

O take me, take me up into the ranks so that I do not die a common death! I do not want to die in vain, what I want is to fall on the sacrificial mound.

It strikes Werner just then as wondrously futile to build splendid buildings, to make music, to sing songs, to print huge books full of colorful birds in the face of the seismic, engulfing indifference of the world—what pretensions humans have!

What you already have is better than what you so desperately seek.