Ambition quotes

Ambition

2.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

2.3K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside ambition — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Ambition quotes (page 30 of 114)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Stendhal Novelist
Ambition

"The first virtue of a young man today - that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers - is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains."

Read quote 3 likes
Stephen Covey Author, Speaker
Ambition

"We all go through stages. Concerns about appearances, making good impressions, being popular, comparing yourself to others, having unbridled ambition, wanting to make money, striving to be recognized and noticed and trying to establish yourself, all fade as your responsibilities and character grow."

Read quote 3 likes
Stephen King Author
Ambition

"I'd like to take a motorcycle trip across Europe, maybe even across China. Of course I'd also like to broker a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but it's important to put ceilings on one's ambitions."

Read quote 3 likes
Robert Winston Physicist and Science Communicator
Ambition

"When I grew up, we didn't have a TV, and I think more families today have ambitions of getting out of their environment, such as sending their children to university."

Read quote 3 likes
Swami Vivekananda Spiritual Leader, Philosopher
Ambition

"Behind my work was ambition, behind my love was personality, behind my purity was fear, behind my guidance the thirst for power. Now they are vanishing and I drift. I come, Mother, I come, in Thy warm bosom, floating wheresoever Thou takest me, in the voiceless, in the strange, in the wonderland, I come - a spectator, no more an actor."

Read quote 3 likes
Swami Vivekananda Spiritual Leader, Philosopher
Ambition

"My boat is nearing the calm harbour from which it is never more to be driven out. Glory, glory unto Mother! (Referring to the Divine Mother of the Universe.) I have no wish, no ambition now. Blessed be Mother! I am the servant of Ramakrishna. I am merely a machine. I know nothing else. Nor do I want to know."

Read quote 3 likes
Russell Brand Comedian, Actor
Ambition

"If you strip away self-effacement, charm and the spirit of mischief-qualities that make determination and ambition tolerable- you're left with a right ar**hole."

Read quote 3 likes
Russell Baker Writer
Ambition

"We honor ambition, we reward greed, we celebrate materialism, we worship acquisitiveness, we commercialize art, we cherish success and then we bark at the young about the gentle arts of the spirit. The kids know that if we really valued learning, we would pay our teachers what we pay our lawyers and stockbrokers. If we valued art, we would not measure it by its capacity to produce profits. If we regarded literature as important, we would remove it from the celebrity sweepstakes and spend a little money on our libraries."

Read quote 3 likes
Russell Baker Writer
Ambition

"The early commentators who put down the pre-presidential Roosevelt as an empty-headed young lightweight, all ambition and no talent, now seem comically wrong to a modern book-reading, movie-going, television-watching, legend-loving American public conditioned to think of him as one of the presidential giants on the order of Washington and Lincoln."

Read quote 3 likes
Russell Kirk Political Theorist, Author
Ambition

"...ambition without pious restraint must end in failure, often involving in its ruin that beautiful reverence which solaces common men for the obscurity and poverty of their lot."

Read quote 3 likes
Russell Kirk Political Theorist, Author
Ambition

"Rather than ennobling the public mind and cementing the social fabric, applied science speedily became the chief weapon of a gross individualism, which was anathema to the frugal and righteous (John Quincy) Adams, the source of enormous fortunes divorced from duty, the instrument of unscrupulous ambition and rapacious materialism. Presently, it came to scar the very of the country which Adams loved, a disfiguring process uninterrupted since his day."

Read quote 3 likes
Laila Ali Professional Boxer, Television Personality
Ambition

"I'm inspired on a daily basis by my personal goals. I make it a habit to write down what it is that I want to accomplish. And I check that list. I keep myself accountable. My kids inspire me, of course. My ambition inspires me. I want to win at everything that I do in life. I understand that it takes hard work to reach my goals and I'm prepared to do it. My confidence comes from preparation. So I spend a lot of my time preparing."

Read quote 3 likes
Zadie Smith Novelist, Essayist
Ambition

"I have an ambition to write a great book, but that's really a competition with myself. I've noticed that a lot of young writers, people in all media, want to be famous but they don't really want to do anything. I can't think of anything less worth striving for than fame."

Read quote 3 likes
Mahatma Gandhi Political Leader
Ambition

"Woman is the embodiment of sacrifice and suffering and her advent to public life should, therefore, result in purifying it, in restraining unbridled ambition and accumulation of property."

Read quote 3 likes