Quotes About Ambition

Every man believes that he has a greater possibility.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.

— Charles de Gaulle

As he was valiant, I honor him; but as he was ambitious, I slew him.

— William Shakespeare

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, and masked.

— Walter Savage Landor

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.

— Oscar Wilde

Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another’s fame.

— Baltasar Gracian

Ambition makes more trusty slaves than need.

— Ben Jonson

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

— Samuel Johnson

A man’s worth is no greather than the worth of his ambitions.

— Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.

— Jean de La Bruyre

Ambition hath no mean, it is either upon all fours or upon tiptoes.

— George Savile

Ambition is the grand enemy of all peace.

— John Cowper Powys

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?

— Robert Browning

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease.  The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

— Nathaniel Hawthorne

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

— Thomas Alva Edison

Nothing is so commonplace as to wish to be remarkable.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

If Man, Ambition is the common’st thing:/ Each one, by nature, loves to be a King.

— Robert Herrick

One often goes from love to ambition, but one rarely returns from ambition to love.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow