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Ambition has no rest!
Author: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton
Source: Richelieu (act III, sc. 1)
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When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to
the second or even the third rank.
[Lat., Prima enim sequentem, honestumn est in secundis,
tertiisque consistere.]
Author: Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero)
Source: De Oratore (I)
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On what strange stuff Ambition feeds!
Author: Eliza Cook
Source: Thomas Hood
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By low ambition and the thirst of praise.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Table Talk (l. 591)
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On the summit see,
The seals of office glitter in his eyes;
He climbs, he pants, he grasps them! At his heels,
Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,
And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,
And wins them, but to lose them in his turn.
Author: William Cowper
Source: Task (bk. IV, l. 58)
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The great refusal.
[It., Il gran rifiuto.]
Author: Dante ("Dante Alighieri")
Source: Inferno (canto III, LX), supposedly referring to Celestive V, elected Pope in 1294
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But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
Author: John Dryden
Source: Absalom and Achitophel (pt. I, l. 198)
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Be nice to people on your way up because you might meet 'em on
your way down.
Author: John Dryden
Source: Absalom and Achitophel (pt. I, l. 198)
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If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all.
Author: Elizabeth I
Source: Worthies of England (vol. I, p. 419), by Thomas Fuller, (written on window pane under words written
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They please, are pleas'd, they give to get esteem
Till, seeming blest, they grow to what they seem.
Author: Oliver Goldsmith
Source: The Traveller (l. 266)
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For all may have,
If they dare to try, a glorious life, or grave.
Author: George Herbert
Source: The Temple--The Church-Porch
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I strike the stars with by sublime head.
[Lat., Sublimi feriam sidera vertice.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Carmina (bk. I, 1)
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Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we would storm
heaven itself in our folly.
[Lat., Nil mortalibus arduum est:
Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Carmina (I, 3, 37)
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No steps backward.
[Lat., Vestigia nulla retrorsum.]
Author: Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus)
Source: Epistles (I, 1, 74)
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I see, but cannot reach, the height
That lies forever in the light.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Christus--The Golden Legend (p. II, A Village Church)
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Most people would succeed in small things if they were not
troubled with great ambitions.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Drift-Wood--Table-Talk
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The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: Excelsior
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The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,
May hope to achieve it before life be done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets.
Author: Lord Lytton (Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton) ("Owen Meredith")
Source: Lucile (pt. I, canto II, st. 8)
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He was utterly without ambition [Chas. II.]. He detested
business, and would sooner have abdicated his crown than have
undergone the trouble of really directing the administration.
Author: Thomas Babington Macaulay
Source: History of England (Character of Charles II) (vol. I, ch. II)
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Here may we reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell.
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. I, l. 263)
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Such joy ambition finds.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IV, l. 92)
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But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious first and last
To basest things.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Lost (bk. IX, l. 168)
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If at great things thou would'st arrive,
Get riches first, get wealth, and treasure heap,
Not difficult, if thou hearken to me;
Riches are mine, fortune is in my hand,
They whom I favor thrive in wealth amain,
While virtue, valor, wisdom, sit in want.
Author: John Milton
Source: Paradise Regained (bk. II, l. 426)
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Who know but He, whose hand the lightning forms,
Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms,
Pours fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Essay on Man (ep. I, l. 157)
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Oh, sons of earth! attempt ye still to rise.
By mountains pil'd on mountains to the skies?
Heav'n still with laughter the vain toil surveys,
And buries madmen in the heaps they raise.
Author: Alexander Pope
Source: Essay on Man (ep. IV, l. 74)
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Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.
Author: F. Hawes
Source: None
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Very few people are ambitious in the sense of having a specific image of what they want to achieve. Most people's sights are only toward the next run, the next increment of money.
Author: Judith M. Bardwick
Source: None
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What I aspired to be and was not, comforts me.
Author: Robert Browning
Source: None
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Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.
Author: Robert Burton
Source: None
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The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.
Author: Herbert N. Casson
Source: None
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Big results require big ambitions.
Author: James Champy
Source: None
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The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.
Author: Marcus T. Cicero
Source: None
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A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
Author: Joseph Conrad
Source: None
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I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before, but as far as it was possible for a man to go.
Author: James R. Cook
Source: None
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I want to work with the top people, because only they have the courage and the confidence and the risk- seeking profile that you need.
Author: Laurel Cutler
Source: None
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At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
Author: Salvador Dali
Source: None
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Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
Author: C. Archie Danielson
Source: None
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Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals.
Author: Sir John Denham
Source: None
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Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.
Author: Thomas Dunn English
Source: None
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Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
Author: Timothy Leary
Source: None
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We grow small trying to be great.
Author: Eli Stanley Jones
Source: None
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Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.
Author: Joseph Joubert
Source: None
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When you go in search of honey you must expect to be stung by bees.
Author: Kenneth Kaunda
Source: None
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Ambition never comes to an end.
Author: Yoshida Kenko
Source: None
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A slave has but one master. An ambitious man has as many as there are people who helped him get his fortune.
Author: Jean De La Bruyere
Source: None
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Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.
Author: William Lilly
Source: None
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Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Source: None
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Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.
Author: Niccolo Machiavelli
Source: None
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Nature that framed us of four elements, warring within our breasts for regiment, doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.
Author: Christopher Marlowe
Source: None
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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
Author: Charlie McCarthy
Source: None
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