ambition

I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith--contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition--the desire to succeed--to have power--leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety; and if it is denied--ah! if it is denied--let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! The are filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so to be shut off from life itself forever.

A king of a kingdom no one fucking knows about! I'm the tree in the forest that silently falls--when no one is around to be crushed! [Lothaire, Enemy of Old]

We had made the error of staying small _ and there is no more unforgivable crime in America.

The visions of a healthy brain,Give us pleasure over and again;For this home was done,From the daytime dreams of one.

Like overzealous religious converts, climbers originally from the lower rungs of society tend to go overboard when they ape the upper class.

Maybe that was the trouble. She got the first and biggest share of everything _ first whack at the new clothes and the biggest part of any special treat. Hazel never had to grab for anything and she was soft.

I thrice presented him a kingly crown. Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

I don't care much whether I ever get to know anything - but I want to work out something in figures - something that hasn't got to do with human beings. I don't want people particularly. In some ways, Henry, I'm a humbug - I mean, I'm not what you all take me for. I'm not domestic, or very practical or sensible, really.And if I could calculate things, and use a telescope, and have to work out figures, and know to a fraction where I was wrong, I should be perfectly happy, and I believe I should give William all he wants.

I know what other people think about me,_ Rusty told her. _ __hat Rusty,_ they say. __harming and handsome,_ they say first, of course__hey__e not blind. Then they add, __ll the ambition and drive of a chocolate sundae._

There is something I want to do. But it's something to work towards, not something that should be handed to me on a plate. What's the point of doing something if you know you've got someone to rescue you if you fail? I like to work hard at something and then to reap the rewards. I take pride in what I do. What's the point if I know my rich husband will bail me out if I mess up?

Leadership is not about your ambition. It is about bringing out the ambitions of your team.

And yet - and yet - one's kite will rise on the wind as far as ever one has string to let it go. It tugs and tugs and will go, and one is glad the further it goes, even if everybody else is nasty about it.

A man shrinks or expands into the degree and nature of his ambition. Ambition needs to be cultivated and refined, and yet has no teachers.

An empty bottle of Jack is almost just as beautiful as a new and unopened bottle...in the same sense as looking down at muddied feet, and looking back the way you came. The journey you've taken to get to this point, the experiences and sights and music listened to, the shit scrolled down on paper. An empty bottle may hold more promise than a full one in that regard...

A longing for the extraordinary had grabbed ahold of her and was burning her up inside, so hot and fierce that her heart had gone stone cold toward everything and everybody standing in her way. That was Mama. Fire and ice.

The brown and charred rags that hung from the sides of it, I presently recognized as the decaying vestiges of books. They had long since dropped to pieces, and every semblance of print had left them. But here and there were warped boards and cracked metallic clasps that told the tale well enough. Had I been a literary man I might, perhaps, have moralized upon the futility of all ambition. But as it was, the thing that struck me with keenest force was the enormous waste of labour to which this sombre wilderness of rotting paper testified.

Today's politicians are like policemen on traffic duty. They are just dealing with traffic right in front of them. Yet they want to be the Superintendent based on that alone. The politicians and the bigwigs in finance have no ambition. There are too many who confuse the power that they got by their position as their own ability.

Minor talents or failing talents ask much of those who associate with them. They suck, they cling, they sour, they devour, and they can kill their hosts. Disappointment is a deadly companion. We didn't yet know how many of us would end up in its grip, because we were all still striving, and some of us thought we were thriving.