“To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attempts at escape. And my feelings, at the end of that wretched term, were those of a man who knows he s in a cage, exposed to the jeers of all his old ambitions until he dies.”
“Follow your star, it s never too late, even if it doesn t quite happen as you expect.”
“The children are innocent until proven guilty. For their sake, not ours, we must soldier on, muddling our way toward frugality, simplicity, liberty, community, until some kind of sane and rational balance is achieved between our ability to love and our cockeyed ambition to conquer and dominate everything in sight. No wonder the galaxies recede from us in every direction, fleeing at velocities that approach the speed of light. They are frightened. We humans are the Terror of the Universe.”
“He built up a situation that was far enough from the truth. It never occurred to him that Helen was to blame. He forgot the intensity of their talk, the charm that had been lent him by sincerity, the magic of Oniton under darkness and of the whispering river. Helen loved the absolute. Leonard had been ruined absolutely, and had appeared to her as a man apart, isolated from the world. A real man, who cared for adventure and beauty, who desired to live decently and pay his way, who could have travelled more gloriously through life than the Juggernaut car that was crushing him.”
“It s a shame that we humans are never able to pull in the same direction . . . [n]ot even when confronted by infinity.”
“Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race - of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance - of substituting peace for war - freedom for bondage - religion for superstition - the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for.”
“It is the age of ambition that proves the mettle of men”
“The piercing fanfare of the brass against the brutal boom and rattle of the drums surged through the air. At the head of the Ferris band marched the drum majorette. A crimson and white shako crowned her long dark hair which flew out behind her and across her radiant face flushed with excitement. Her blue eyes flashed and her smile registered triumph at having been chosen.”
“To want something desperately, to be tested, to feel that life will be impossible if the object of one s desires is not achieved, is always dangerous for the soul. Some people attempt to climb Everest because, as they say, it is there; others want nothing but wealth and care little how or where they collect it; others still, with less avaricious tastes - perhaps desiring nothing more than freedom from fear - are blinded by the same personal sun that shines on all human ambition. At some time or another it burns most of us.”
“It is indeed strange, given the heavy emphasis placed by chroniclers on Churchill s sheer magnitude of personality, that the ingredient of pure ambition should be so much ignored or even disallowed.”
“Philip was shocked by the contrast between the Spaniard s heroic endeavour and the triviality of the thing he attempted.”
“نهض فريد فجأة عندما سمع كلمة الطموح فهي الكلمة التي يخشاها ويرى صاحبها متعلقاً بالدنيا”
“You grumble you don t get what you want, do you really know what you want?”
“I don t wanna be the best title in the world, i just want to be the best i can be, if that leads me to being the best in some field, that s just a consequence of me being true to myself, and that is why i think every and anyone can dream and aspire the top.”
“The drive of ambition and passion is needed to get people up to get what they want. But when he is unable to control it, the same impulses can lead man to his own downfall”
“What cannot Praise effect in Mighty Minds, When Flattery Sooths, and when Ambition Blinds!”
“I think madness had hidden there, in that extreme but also tiny ambition, like swallowing a centipede tossed in the salad.”