Ambition

“ Nay, noble lord, nay; canst thou so wrong womanhood in me unworthy? for surely true ambition lives not only in the goods of fortune. Is there no nobler ambition than that of the vanity? Is there no ambition of the heart,—an ambition to console, to cheer the griefs of those who love and trust us; an ambition to build a happiness out of the reach of fate; an ambition to soothe some high soul, in its strife with a mean world,—to lull to sleep its pain, to smile to serenity its cares? ”

“ Those only are beyond hope who have no spirit of emulation, no craving after excellence—those only, in short, who are devoid of ambition. I invite you, therefore, to be ambitious. Only I ask you to purify your ambition, to consecrate it, to direct it through worthy channels and to worthy aims. I desire to show you the more excellent way.
If, indeed, ambition has achieved splendid results, it can only have done so by virtue of splendid qualities. It must contain in itself true and abiding elements, which we cannot afford to neglect. Thus it involves a love of approbation. ”

“ But ambition, my boy, is like to all the other gifts that lead men Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere striving for place and power, without a saving sense of the responsibility conferred by that place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I know--as you will some day come to understand--is not a blessing but a curse. It is the curse from which our age is suffering sorely ”

“ When I speak of the ambition of these two, I hope to be understood as meaning ambition with its true feminine modifications. And this is the contrast:—The ambition of the one is a necessity of her nature, the ripening of every hour’s aspiration; while the ambition of the other is but the fortunate afterthought of an unsophisticated wish. ”

“ So, if I am spurred by an ambition, it is to beg the world to seek once more whatever can lighten the present and the future distress of mankind, to seek the springs of interest that exist for the soul in a life harassed with difficulties, perils and disillusionments, to honor more than ever the faithful and incorruptible resources of the inner life. ”

“ Whence comes this overmastering impulse which pushes human beings on, each to his individual goal? Where is the source of ambition, and how and when does it gain entrance into our lives?
How few of us ever stop to think what ambition really means, its cause, or significance! Yet, if we could explain just what ambition is, we could explain the mystery of the universe. The instinctive impulse to keep pushing on and up is the most curious and the most interesting thing in human life. It exists in every normal human being, and is just as pronounced and as real as the instinct of self-preservation. ”

“ Nothing so strengthens the mind and enlarges the horizon of manhood as a constant effort to measure up to a worthy ambition. It stretches the thought, as it were, to a larger measure, and touches the life to finer issues. ”

“ Let your ambition be the achievement on earth of a Heavenly civilization! I ask for you the supreme blessing, that you may be so filled with the vitality of the Heavenly Spirit that you may be the cause of life to the world. ”

“ That ambition, which, conceived in early youth, had decided my career and sweetened all its labours,—the ambition to take a rank and leave a name as one of the great pathologists to whom humanity accords a grateful, if calm, renown,—saw before it a level field and a certain goal. ”

“ Any cause, any ambition, any great endeavor that can stir the blood, and give a life direction, purpose, and continuity of achievement, has the power to rescue life from ennui, from emptiness, and give it positive worth. But most ambitions pall in time, and many a cause that has taken a man's best energies has come to seem mistaken or futile with the years. There is only one great campaign which is so eternal, so surely necessary, so clear in its summons to all men, that the heart can rest in it as in something great enough to ennoble a whole life. ”

“ Others will tell you to sacrifice everything to ambition; I tell you to give all your true interests precedence before ambition—as it is commonly understood. I mean to say this: be perfectly indifferent both to fortune and fame, and pursue only one single object, that of enlightening your fellow-men, no matter by what means, and no matter in what condition they may be. ”

“ When I was young enough to cherish such daring ambitions I dreamed that I could make a place for myself in this great struggling, writhing world, a place high enough to satisfy my ambition and feed my hope. ”

“ My ambition is that of the earth, the ever producing and resuscitating earth, doing the will of God, combatting the rasure of time; and my contentment is that of the majestic pines, faring alike in shade and sunshine, in calm and storm, in winter as in spring. Ambition and Contentment are the night and day of my life-journey. ”

“ I have observed in considering the nature of ambition, that the great feel a double pleasure in authority from the comparison of their own condition with that of their slaves; and that this comparison has a double influence, because it is natural, and presented by the subject. ”

“ How many a success in after-days is reckoned but as one step in that ladder of ambition some boyish review has framed, perhaps, after all, destined to be the first and only one! With what triumph we hail some goal attained, some object of our wishes gained, less for its present benefit, than as the accomplishment of some youthful prophecy, when picturing to our hearts all that we would have in life, we whispered within us the flattery of success. ”

“ Could I work for outward success only, or chiefly, subordinating aspiration to what stifles aspiration? Would riches satisfy me? Would actual power over men, ecclesiastical, civil, or social? Could I live for ambition, and sit down unapproved of my better life to enjoy its achievements? Would the acquisition of knowledge and its employment as a means of worldly power, distinction, and advantage satisfy the inner hunger which longs for the truth, the light, the harmony of highest heavens? ”

“ I advise every [45] youth to frame this motto, hang it, up in his room, in his store, in his office, in the factory where he works, where it will stare him in the face. Constant contemplation of it will make his life broader and deeper.
A fine ambition is a splendid life steadier. It holds us to our task; keeps us from yielding to the hundred temptations that might ruin us.
What chaos there would be but for man’s ambition to get up and get on in the world and to improve his condition. ”

“ Ambition, which I own myself possest of, teaches me this; ambition, which makes me covet praise, assures me that I shall enjoy a much larger proportion of it than can fall within your power either to deserve or obtain. ”

“ Some wish to fill posts of honor and trust in their country's service; some would win respect and honor in some of the learned professions; some would seek esteem and competency in the schools of art; some would lay the foundations of a noble life in mechanism; some in agriculture; some in commerce. The avocations are many, but the spirit, the aim, the ambition is one. ”

“ You speak of the ambition for self; my ambition is singular—it is the ambition for others. Some years ago I chanced to form an object in what I considered the welfare of my race. You smile. Nay, I boast no virtue in my dreams ”

“ I have taken ambition as my example, but the play of every human passion offers similar lessons to any one who will study history to make himself wise and good at the expense of those who went before. ”

“ Should I succeed,—should the great prizes of public life be within my reach,—should I lift myself into a position that would warrant my presumption, do you think I could come to you and say, ‘There is an object of ambition dearer to me than power and office,—the hope of attaining which was the strongest of all my motives of action? ”

“ To think that not all the glory of a great cause, all the pride of successful ambition, striving for rewards the very highest,—all that I possess of power and influence,—all, all should give way to the grief for a half-forgotten, unreturned love! ”

“ How easily does ambition become rapacity; and if the heart's yearnings for the unattainable are forcibly stilled, and the mind is governed by the determination that no wish shall be indulged but for that already in its power, how soon and easily may it sink into the torpor of inaction! ”

“ To one who, revisiting the scenes amidst which the best years of his life were spent, asks himself what topic may be fitly handled in this pulpit, the subject of ambition will naturally suggest itself. ”

“ A proper name for it is ambition—a selfish quality, whose essence bears no relation to the aspiration of boy and girl, man and woman, toward what is finest and best.
This feeling of aspiration, which exists in the soul and appears to be innate in human beings everywhere, offers a clear and indisputable revelation of a purpose for man's life, above and beyond the mere continuation of it. It is one very solid answer to the second part of the great question: What is the purpose of my life? To strive toward betterment and excellence, in accordance with your lights and conscience. ”

“ An ambition which has conscience in it will always be a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success by the most faithful and minute performances of duty. The liberty to go higher than we are is given only when we have fulfilled amply the duty of our present sphere. ”

“ How well do these words express that which should be the highest end of human ambition. Happy will it be for any man of whom, when he has passed from the world, it can with truth be written above his grave, "Here lies one who tried to do his duty!" ”

“ All that comes from ambition; and the cause of ambition is a little blister under the tongue with a tiny worm inside it no bigger than a pin’s head; and all that is the doing of a certain hairdresser who lives in the Goròkhovaya. ”

“ I know the first generous impulse of your heart is always good; but then ambition,--let me speak truth to you,--avarice, the offspring of ambition, leads you astray, and contaminates the source of your first feelings. ”

“ You think me ambitious: ambition, alas! is composed of more rugged materials. If I were ambitious, I should not for so many years have been a prey to all the hell of conscientious scruples. ”

“ That for which a man is ambitious decides the quality of the word. A pure, holy purpose makes the intense reaching for it pure and holy too. An intense reaching out to the farthest reach of the Master's word, that finds expression in the dominant spirit of the life, in the service, in the giving, the sacrificing, the praying--this is the true ambition.
Paul uses three times a word that has the force of our word ambition.15 The American Revision uses ambition in the margin for it. ”

“ “Nothing but ambition, nothing but the desire to get on, that’s all there is in his soul,” she thought; “as for these lofty ideals, love of culture, religion, they are only so many tools for getting on.” ”

“ To remember that success lies within myself, in my own brain, my own ambition, my own courage and determination. To expect difficulties and force my way through them, to turn hard experience into capital for future struggles. ”

“ No. 26—The Climber
That form of misplaced ambition, which is the subject of the preceding chapter, can only be regarded seriously when it occurs among simple and sincere people, who, however derided, honestly believe that they are doing their duty to themselves and their families when they move heaven and earth to rise a few steps in the world. The moment we find ambition taking a purely social form, it becomes ridiculous. ”

“ If we are facing some great life ambition let us see if our heroic plans are good, high, noble and exalted enough for the price we must pay for their attainment. Let us seriously and honestly look into our needs, our abilities, our resources, our responsibilities, to assure ourselves that it is no mere passing whim that is leading us. ”

“ Perhaps I have not the power or patience to shape a man's soul to a noble purpose or ambition. I want him strong and [72] earnest, full of energy and that high sense of duty to all around him, not satisfied to drift down the stream in frivolous content, but to make the way better for his having gone over it. ”

“ The ambition is everywhere,—in every breast; the power is everywhere,—in every brain. The giant and the pigmy are alike active in seeking out and finding out many inventions. And in this very universality of effort and result we discover another guaranty of the great future. ”

“ If not for that of conscience, yet at least for ambition’s sake, let us reject ambition; let us disdain that thirst of honour and renown, so low and mendicant, that it makes us beg it of all sorts of people:
“Quae est ista laus quae: possit e macello peti?” ”

“ Some understand Ambition as Title, Wealth, Estates; I understand it as Fame, Name, Power. I have undertaken a very peculiar man; I have asked a difficult mission of God, and that is to give me that man’s body and soul. ”

“ If an ambition survives and flourishes on the top of that daily cultivation of the machine, then the owner of the ambition may be sure that it is a genuine and an invincible ambition, and he may pursue it in full faith ”

“ Can you wonder that my own great ambition, quite impossible of accomplishment, is to emulate these men—not in the same pursuits, but in some way, in any way, which enables me to give to the world the best that is in me. ”

“ And ambition is a great vice—as Mark Antony told us a long time ago—a great vice, no doubt, if the ambition of the man be with reference to his own advancement, and not to the advancement of others. But then, how many of us are there who are not ambitious in this vicious manner? ”