49 Quotes About Ambition

Completing your most ambitious goals requires some skills and strategies to make it a reality. These quotes about ambition serve as the perfect motivator to get on track.

“A dream without ambition is like a car without gas… you’re not going anywhere.”

“A man without ambition is like a beautiful worm–it can creep, but it cannot fly.”

“A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.”

“A young man without ambition is an old man waiting to be.”

“Achievement results from work realizing ambition.”

“Ambition and the belly are the two worst counselors.”

“Ambition destroys its possessor.”

“Ambition first sprung from your blest abodes; The glorious fault of Angels and of Gods.”

“Ambition has its disappointments to sour us, but never the good fortune to satisfy us. Its appetite grows keener by indulgence and all we can gratify it with at present serves but the more to inflame its insatiable desires.”

“Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.”

“Ambition is a good servant but a bad master.”

“Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.”

“Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.”

“Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme, to be sublimely great, or to be nothing.”

“Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals.”

“Ambition is putting a ladder against the sky.”

“Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.”

“Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.”

“Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.”

“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.”

“Ambition leads me not only farther than any other man has been before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go.”

“Ambition often puts Men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same position with creeping.”

“Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.”

“Big results require big ambitions.”

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”

“Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.”

“I have a personal ambition to live my life honestly and honor the true love that I’ve had and also the people I’ve had around me.”

“I invite everyone to chose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.”

“If you are calm about your ambitions, you become confident of achieving what you set out to do.”

“If you would get ahead, be a bridge.”

“In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one
people.”

“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”

“It has been a long journey, but if you dream and have the ambition and want to work hard, then you can achieve.”

“It will not be amiss to distinguish the three kinds and, as it were, grades of ambition in mankind. The first is of those who desire to extend their own power in their native country, a vulgar and degenerate kind.”

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”

“Love, a pleasant folly; ambition, a serious stupidity.”

“Men rise from one ambition to another: first, they seek to secure themselves against attack, and then they attack others.”

“Most people would succeed in small things, if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”

“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.”

“Revenge, lust, ambition, pride, and self-will are too often exalted as the gods of man’s idolatry; while holiness, peace, contentment, and humility are viewed as unworthy of a serious thought.”

“Say what we will, we may be sure that ambition is an error. Its wear and tear on the heart are never recompensed.”

“Sometimes I think we live in a world where, even when things are good, people always feel unsatisfied with wherever they are, so I think first I just want to enjoy being happy where I am now and not let my ambition take away from being in the moment.”

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.”

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

“Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.”

“When ambition ends, happiness begins.”

“Where ambition can cover its enterprises, even to the person himself, under the appearance of principle, it is the most incurable and inflexible of passions.”

“Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.”

“You should run your life not by the calendar but how you feel, and what you’re interests are and ambitions.”

Working too hard can have some adverse responses to your life and health.