“Ambition is not a dirty word. Piss on compromise. Go for the throat.”
“We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It s almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to.”
“I know what I want. I will pursue it with all heart.”
“His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.”
“Seek happiness in tranquility and avoid ambition even if it be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in science and discoveries.”
“You shouldn t do that, said Laura. You could set yourself on fire.”
“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.”
“A heart fueled by passion is like riding on the back of a dragon.”
“I think this is when most people give up on their stories. They come out of college wanting to change the world, wanting to get married, wanting to have kids and change the way people buy office supplies. But they get into the middle and discover it was harder than they thought. They can t see the distant shore anymore, and they wonder if their paddling is moving them forward. None of the trees behind them are getting smaller and none of the trees ahead are getting bigger. They take it out on their spouses, and they go looking for an easier story.”
“By faithfully working eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.”
“I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something – the eternal ‘what’s the use?’ – sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis.”
“The others in the dorm thought I wanted to be a writer, because I was always alone with a book, but I had no such ambition. There was nothing I wanted to be. ”
“Every man of ambition has to fight his century with its own weapons. What this century worships is wealth. The God of this century is wealth. To succeed one must have wealth. At all costs one must have wealth.”
“You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can t let it slip by, as others let it slip, into the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached.”
“Happiness never made anyone rich or famous. That must be why ambitious people avoid it.”
“We ve had enough. He took back the report and jammed it under his arm. We ve had a bellyful, in fact. And like everyone who s had enough, said Control as Alleline noisily left the room, he wants more.”
“More than ambition, more than ability, it is rules that limit contribution; rules are the lowest common denominator of human behavior. They are a substitute for rational thought.”