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Thoughts on Ambition

Published: Feb 4, 2018 06:15:26 AM IST
Updated: Feb 2, 2018 02:44:43 PM IST

Thoughts on Ambition
The trouble with fulfilling your ambitions is you think you’ll be transformed into some sort of archangel, and you’re not. You still have to wash your socks.
—Louis de Bernières

Ambition is the growth of every clime.
—William Blake

Thoughts on Ambition
First things first; second things never.
—Shirley Conran

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of the earth.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is always room at the top.
—Daniel Webster

Thoughts on Ambition
All my life I wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.
—Jane Wagner

May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.
—Psalm 20:4

Thoughts on Ambition
’Tis not what a man does that exalts him, but what a man would do.
—Robert Browning

Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.
—Edmund Burke

Thoughts on Ambition
At age 6, I wanted to be a cook. At 7, I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
—Salvador Dalí

Ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.
—Ambrose Bierce

Thoughts on Ambition
Would you give up the craft of your hands, and the passion of your heart, and the hunger of your mind, to buy safety?
—Ursula K LeGuin

Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.
—Marcel Proust

Thoughts on Ambition
The future is what matters, because one never reaches it, but always stays in the present.
—Sylvia Plath
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
—Sir Walter Raleigh

Thoughts on Ambition
Ambition is best not naked.
—Malcolm Forbes


Image: Bernières: Alessia Pierdomenico / Reuters; Conran, Wagner, Browning: Getty Images; Dalí: Shutterstock ; Leguin: Dan Tuffs / Getty Images; Plath: Bettmann / Getty Images


(This story appears in the 16 February, 2018 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)

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