“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?”
“Ambition is pitiless. Any merit that it cannot use it finds despicable.”
“Though ambition in itself is a vice, it often is also the parent of virtue.”
“Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.”
“He who surpasses or subdues mankind, must look down on the hate of those below.”
“As falls the dew on quenchless sands, blood only serves to wash ambition's hands.”
“Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly.”
“Man is the only creature that strives to surpass himself, and yearns for the impossible.”
“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.”
“Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.”
“Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.”
“If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.”
“Oh that I were seated as high as my ambition, I'd place my naked foot on the necks of monarchs.”
“The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune.”
“It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.”
“The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.”
“All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.”
“He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.”
“There are glimpses of heaven to us in every act, or thought, or word, that raises us above ourselves.”
“When you are aspiring to the highest place, it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.”
“Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied.”
“Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime . Not failure, but low aim is crime.”
“I had no ambition to make a fortune. Mere money-making has never been my goal, I had an ambition to build.”
“A slave has but one master. An ambition man, has as many as there are people who helped him get his fortune.”
“Where there are large powers with little ambition... nature may be said to have fallen short of her purposes.”
“Ambition. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.”
“Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.”
“I too must attempt a way by which I can raise myself above the ground, and soar triumphant through the lips of men.”
“Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme; to be sublimely great or to be nothing.”
“The men who succeed are the efficient few. They are the few who have the ambition and will power to develop themselves.”