everyone endeavors as much as possible to make others love what he loves, and to hate what he hates... This effort to make everyone approve what we love or hate is in truth ambition, and so we see that each person by nature desires that other persons should live according to his way of thinking...
I've wanted to win at everything, every day, since I was a kid. And time doesn't change a person, it just helps you get a handle on who you are. Even at age 41, I still hate losing--I'm just more gracious about it. I'm also aware that setbacks have an upside; they fuel new dreams.
My goals may seem impossibly far-fetched when really they're not. Break them down into steps and see how I accomplish great things. I can easily reach from A to B. I can manage from B to C. I can then make it from C to D. And so eventually, I will find my way from A to Z.
Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, and then happiness as we can manage it.... Take what pleasure you can in the interstices of your work, but your work is first, learning first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.
As though she were asking me where some sort of unusual wine could be obtained, she inquired fretfully and worriedly: 'Jack, have you any idea where I could find some presentable loose women?' I had no idea where she could find anything else. At last a lifetime ambition of mine to become a pimp was satisfied.
Yes, but the artist?" said Nigel almost fiercely. "He's different, you know he is. He's driven by some compulsion: if he can't do what he knows he has to do with his life he might as well be dead. He's got to break through the world's indifference, or else break himself against it. He can't help it.
Never give up. It's like breathing—once you quit, your flame dies letting total darkness extinguish every last gasp of hope. You can't do that. You must continue taking in even the shallowest of breaths, continue putting forth even the smallest of efforts to sustain your dreams. Don't ever, ever, ever give up.
Minor talents or failing talents ask much of those who associate with them. They suck, they cling, they sour, they devour, and they can kill their hosts. Disappointment is a deadly companion. We didn't yet know how many of us would end up in its grip, because we were all still striving, and some of us thought we were thriving.
Today's politicians are like policemen on traffic duty. They are just dealing with traffic right in front of them. Yet they want to be the Superintendent based on that alone. The politicians and the bigwigs in finance have no ambition. There are too many who confuse the power that they got by their position as their own ability.
THE EMPRESS LO was not beautiful but she was ambitious and, sometimes, ambition can take you further than beauty. The women of the court never wondered how she got this far because as all women know, the rise to power is relatively simple ~ especially if it is a man who has control. ~ from the Three Lives of Empress Lo. Forthcoming.
The truest of all truths is this: You are a child of God. Out of more than six billion people on earth now, He knows your name, what you fear and what you revere. He cares about the things you care about. He wants your happiness and success, and will reach to the farthest corner of the universe to see that you obtain your noblest dreams.
And what, O Queen, are those things that are dear to a man? Are they not bubbles? Is not ambition but an endless ladder by which no height is ever climbed till the last unreachable rung is mounted? For height leads on to height, and there is not resting-place among them, and rung doth grow upon rung, and there is no limit to the number.
…and they limp and halt, they’re all wrinkled, drawn, they squint to the side, can’t look you in the eyes, and always bent on duty, trudging after Ruin, maddening, blinding Ruin. But Ruin is strong and swift—She outstrips them all by far, stealing a march, leaping over the whole wide earth to bring mankind to grief.
…I wanted to remove,my diamond earrings,for I felt they were,weighing a little heavy.I wanted to remove my heels,for I felt they were,taking me a little,above the ground,than I needed to be.I wanted to,throw away my blazer,for it was too much,of a thick layer,to what I am deep inside.” (Poem- Unambitious, Book- Ginger and Honey)
By adherence to a special set of rules, the child of the shabby-genteel can sometimes leap across the time which has passed by his family and function in the real world without doing violence to the hopes his mother held out for him. But those who cannot live within this pattern are the freaks and poets, and they travel a different road to peace.
