Ambitious Man Quotes

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  Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

  Salvador Dali

  Inspirational, Motivational, Art

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• Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place.

  Charles Baudelaire

  Hate, Men, Two

  Charles Baudelaire, Jonathan Mayne (1981). “Art in Paris 1845-1862: salons and other exhibitions”

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• When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.

  William Shakespeare

  Ambition, Men, Ambitious

  'Julius Caesar' (1599) act 3, sc. 2, l. [97]

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• 

  It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less

  Susan B. Anthony

  Strong Women, Equality, White

  Motto of The Revolution (newspaper), 8 Jan. 1868

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• The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

  William Shakespeare

  Inspirational, Dream, Ambition

  William Shakespeare (2001). “Hamlet”, p.155, Classic Books Company

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• Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

  Timothy Leary

  Funny, Hilarious, Girly

  "Third and Possibly the Best 637 Best Things Anybody Ever Said". Book by Robert Byrne, No. 40, 1986.

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• If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Men, Effort, Ambitious

  Edgar Allan Poe, Rufus Wilmot Griswold (1857). “The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe”, p.508

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• The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune.

  William Penn

  Inspirational, Ambition, Power

  William Penn (1726). “A Collection of the Works of William Penn: To which is Prefixed a Journal of His Life, with Many Original Letters and Papers Not Before Published”, p.849

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• The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Work, Ambition, Men

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• They [i.e. ambitious men] may not cease, but as a dog in a wheel, a bird in a cage, or a squirrel in a chain, so Budaeus compares them; they climb and climb still, with much labour, but never make an end, never at the top.

  Robert Burton

  Dog, Business, Ambition

  "The Anatomy of Melancholy". Book by Robert Burton, 1621.

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• A man's worth is no greater than his ambitions.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Philosophical, Ambition, Men

  28 Copy quote

• Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.

  Susan B. Anthony

  Witty, Strong Women, Independent

  Motto of The Revolution (newspaper), 8 Jan. 1868

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• If any ambitious man have a fancy to revolutionize, at one effort, the universal world of human thought, human opinion, and human sentiment, the opportunity is his own -- the road to immortal renown lies straight, open, and unencumbered before him. All that he has to do is to write and publish a very little book. Its title should be simple -- a few plain words -- My Heart Laid Bare. But -- this little book must be true to its title.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Honesty, Lying, Book

  Edgar Allan Poe (2006). “The Portable Edgar Allan Poe”, p.601, Penguin

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• Thinking men cannot be ruled; ambitious men do not stagnate.

  Ayn Rand

  Men, Thinking, Ambitious

  Ayn Rand (1990). “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”, p.229, Penguin

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• But I have noticed this about ambitious men, or men in power, that they fear even the slightest and least likely threat to it.

  Mary Stewart

  Power, Men, Ambitious

  Mary Stewart “The Crystal Cave”

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• Vanity is the natural weakness of an ambitious man, which exposes him to the secret scorn and derision of those he converses with, and ruins the character he is so industrious to advance by it.

  Joseph Addison

  Character, Men, Vanity

  Joseph Addison, Richard Hurd, Henry George Bohn (1872). “The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison”, p.158

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• When my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me, when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust.

  John Donne

  Men, Dust, Ambitious

  John Donne (2010). “Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and Death's Duel”, p.176, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A man should know about himself two or three things: whether he is a coward; whether he is an honest man or given to lies; whether he is an ambitious man. One should define oneself first of all in those terms, and only then in terms of culture, race, creed.

  Joseph Brodsky

  Lying, Men, Race

  "Joseph Brodsky's Art of Darkness". www.washingtonpost.com. October 23, 1987.

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• The philosopher spends in becoming a man the time which the ambitious man spends in becoming a personage.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Men, Ambitious, Becoming

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• Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trend is statism. Philosophically , the goal is the obliteration of reason; psychologically , it is the erosion of ambition. The political goal presupposes the two others. The human characteristic required by statism is docility, which is the product of hopelessness and intellectual stagnation. Thinking men cannot be ruled; ambitious men do not stagnate.

  Ayn Rand

  Ambition, Men, Thinking

  Ayn Rand (1990). “The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought”, p.229, Penguin

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• The history of ancient and modern republics had taught them that many of the evils which those republics suffered arose from the want of a certain balance, and that mutual control indispensable to a wise administration. They were convinced that popular assemblies are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sudden impulses, and the intrigues of ambitious men; and that some firm barrier against these operations was necessary. They, therefore, instituted your Senate.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Wise, Ignorance, Men

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• It is not the delicate neurotic person who is prone to angina, but the robust, the vigorous in mind and body, the keen and ambitious man, the indicator of whose engines is always at full speed ahead.

  William Osler

  Men, Mind, Ambitious

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• Whenever you think of Lincoln as a historian, in his own mind, he becomes the Great Emancipator. This is his role in history henceforth. He was an ambitious man who wanted to make an impact on history, and this is how he did it.

  Eric Foner

  Men, Thinking, Impact

  "Eric Foner on the Perennial Relevance of Abraham Lincoln". Interview with Aaron Leonard, historynewsnetwork.org. October 4, 2010.

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• One of the ordinary modes, by which tyrants accomplish their purposes without resistance, is, by disarming the people, and making it an offence to keep arms, and by substituting a regular army in the stead of a resort to the militia. The friends of a free government cannot be too watchful, to overcome the dangerous tendency of the public mind to sacrifice, for the sake of mere private convenience, this powerful check upon the designs of ambitious men.

  Joseph Story

  Powerful, Army, Sacrifice

  Joseph Story (1842). “A Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States”, p.264

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• When ambition enters, creativity disappears - because an ambitious man cannot be creative, because an ambitious man cannot love any activity for its own sake. While he is painting he is looking ahead; he is thinking, 'When am I going to get a Nobel Prize?' When he is writing a novel, he is looking ahead. He is always in the future - and a creative person is always in the present.

  Rajneesh

  Creativity, Ambition, Writing

  9 Copy quote