Every man believes that he has a greater possibility.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
— Charles de Gaulle
As he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him.
— William Shakespeare
Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked.
— Walter Savage Landor
Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
— Oscar Wilde
Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another’s fame.
— Baltasar Gracian
Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need.
— Ben Jonson
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.
— Samuel Johnson
A man’s worth is no greather than the worth of his ambitions.
— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.
— Jean de La Bruyre
Ambition hath no mean, it is either upon all fours or upon tiptoes.
— George Savile
Ambition is the grand enemy of all peace.
— John Cowper Powys
Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?
— Robert Browning
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne
Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
— Thomas Alva Edison
Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
If Man, Ambition is the common’st thing:/ Each one, by nature, loves to be a King.
— Robert Herrick
One often goes from love to ambition, but one rarely returns from ambition to love.
— Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The treacheries of ambition never cease.
— Rubén Dario
“Sayings”
A woman who strives to be like a man lacks ambition.
Ambition lubricates the mind.
There’s always room at the top.
Where there’s a will there’s a way (or a beneficiary).
The way to go from rags to riches is to start by getting a decent set of rags.
Most people want to improve themselves, but not many want to work at it.
Ambitious people don’t make excuses.
“Jokes”
Judge: “Mr. Corbin, the police report says you’ve committed six burglaries in one week!”
Defendant: “That’s right, Your Honor--and if everyone worked as hard as I do, this recession would be behind us.”
“So what?” said Rothschild with a shrug. “We all had to start somewhere.”
