"Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more."
Ambition quotes
Ambition
2.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Ambition
Browse quotes that often appear alongside ambition — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Ambition quotes (page 14 of 114)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank."
"Quite often, ambition operates on a level of irritation. Not even jealousy, just irritation."
"Hope clouds observation."
"This is the posture of fortunes slave: one foot in the gravy, one foot in the grave."
"Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes."
"Don Quixote thought he could have made beautiful bird-cages and toothpicks if his brain had not been so full of ideas of chivalry. Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions."
"Ambition is at the very core of success and extraordinary achievement. Unlike greed, it's a powerful, creative and constructive force."
"In my terms, I settled for the realities of life, and submitted to its necessities: if this, then that, and so the years passed. In Adrian's terms, I gave up on life, gave up on examining it, took it as it came. And so, for the first time, I began to feel a more general remorse - a feeling somewhere between self-pity and self-hatred - about my whole life. All of it. I had lost the friends of my youth. I had lost the love of my wife. I had abandoned the ambitions I had entertained. I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was."
"Some slaves are scoured to their work by whips, others by their restlessness and ambition."
"Do not let great ambitions overshadow small success."
"He who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below."
"As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition's hands."
"Ambition is the death of thought."
"Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another's fame."
"There are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage."
"My ambition is to not have to work any more. In 10 years I want to stop, and I want to be living with my family, taking care of my house. I want to be a housewife."
"Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest."
"My own ambition, my deepest and truest ambition, is to find within myself someday, somehow, the ability to do likewise, to do NOTHING - and find it enough."
"I always wonder what drives us as Artists."