Thoughts on Ambition

By Forbes India

Published: Feb 4, 2018 06:15:26 AM IST

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

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

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

’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

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

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

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

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 30 November, -0001 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)