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
Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall.
—Sir Walter Raleigh
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.)