Quotes & Sayings About Being Too Ambitious

Climbing is an artistic, creative thing; it's about being spontaneous, traveling, seeing the world, hanging out. It's a balance of setting goals while enjoying the process, being ambitious without being too competitive. — Chris Sharma

I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best. — Michael J. Fox

I'm an ambitious person, and Harvard makes me feel successful, just having gotten in here. That's the ugly side of why I'm proud of being at Harvard Law School. Another reason is because there's a spirit of serious intellectual endeavor here. — Scott Turow

An ambitious, paradoxical world we live in -
of short attention spans
paired with the massive fear
of being forgotten too soon. — Sreesha Divakaran

Enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of liberty; as superstition,on the contrary, renders men tame and abject, and fits them for slavery. — David Hume

Sometimes women entrepreneurs are their own challenge, [in terms of] believing in themselves. There is no need to apologise for being ambitious. — Tory Burch

We have a game we play when we're waiting for tables in restaurants, where you have to write the five things that describe yourself on a piece of paper. When I was [in my twenties], I would have put: ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later not one of those five things turned up on my list. I was: journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy. — Nora Ephron

As a host, you set the tone, and you set it right away. It's so easy to get carried away with an ambitious menu, and then spend the whole night flinging things around your kitchen and being annoyed with your guests for having the audacity to try to talk with you. Terrible plan. Everyone would rather have a simpler meal and a happier host. — Shauna Niequist

I guess I'm afraid of not being like other people. No, that's not true. I'm not afraid of not being like other people. I'm afraid I won't find anybody who doesn't mind me not being like other people. I'm not ambitious for money or power. I want to find some real way to live. — Jeanette Winterson

The other problem is that she hasn't arrived."
"Oh, yeah? And who is she?"
"Well, she is a remarkable, funny, classy woman who can say the word fuck without being trashy. She makes me laugh, is ambitious, loves me because I'm nice, not in spite of it, and is as nice in return. She is simply enchanting."
"Shooting for the stars there, aren't you, pal?"
"Shouldn't we all?"
I didn't know anymore, although I utterly envied his romanticism. — Megan Karasch

When my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me, when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust. — John Donne

The omission of an expected conjunction is called an asyndeton. Caesar is supposed to have said about Gaul: I came, I saw, I conquered. Lincoln concluded the Gettysburg Address, That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.Caesar seems to have omitted his conjunction to speed things up; he is emphasizing how quickly the conquest of a place follows from its being sighted by a great and ambitious general. Lincoln's omission is more subtle — Arthur Quinn

The foregrounding of health may be one part of the mission of fashion, but on a more ambitious level, this art form also provides women with clothes that support a range of views about what it means to be an interesting and desirable human being. — Alain De Botton

Being a celebrity or anything else where you're really ambitious, it's really a game to see how successful you can get. — Joe Rogan

Of the various qualities of leadership, women were rated far, far ahead of men on being "honest," "intelligent," "compassionate," "outgoing," and "creative," and were considered just as "hardworking" and "ambitious" as men. Men were perceived as excelling only in being "decisive."1 The preference for men as leaders, then, suggests that the frame for respondents emphasized the role of decisiveness in leadership. — Linda Tarr-Whelan

Aggressive and hard-charging women violate unwritten rules about acceptable social conduct. Men are continually applauded for being ambitious and powerful and successful, but women who display these same traits often pay a social penalty. Female accomplishments come at a cost. — Sheryl Sandberg

Ruins and basilicas, palaces and colossi, set in the midst of a sordid present, where all that was living and warm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep degeneracy of a superstition divorced from reverence; the dimmer but yet eager titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings; the long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the monotonous light of an alien world - all this vast wreck of ambitious ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of breathing forgetfulness and degradation ... the vastness of St. Peter's the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics above, and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading itself everywhere like a disease of the retina. — George Eliot

I'm really ambitious about is being a really good comic and doing it for the rest of my life and getting really big. Not really famous because I want fame or attention, just a little freedom. So, that's where I'm ambitious. — Jen Kirkman

Mechanized warfare still left room for human qualities to play an important part in the issue. 'Automatic warfare' cancels them out, except in a passive form. Archidamus is at last being justified. Courage, skill and patriotism become shrinking assets. The most virile nation might not be able to withstand another, inferior to it in all natural qualities, if the latter had some decisively superior technical appliance.
(...)The advent of 'automatic warfare' should make plain the absurdity of warfare as a means of deciding nations' claims to superiority. It blows away romantic vapourings about the heroic virtues of war, utilized by aggressive and ambitious leaders to generate a military spirit among their people. They can no longer claim that war is any test of a people's fitness, or even of its national strength. Science has undermined the foundations of nationalism, at the very time when the spirit of nationalism is most rampant. — B.H. Liddell Hart

Men may be popular without being ambitious, but there is hardly an ambitious man who does not try to be popular. — Lord North

I'm not really very ambitious. I'm more interested in enjoying my life and looking after my family than being hugely successful. — James D'arcy

I never saw myself as being ambitious, I saw myself as being in love with the profession. I'm a people person. I love to get to know different kinds of people. — Jack Kelley

Hence, though there can be no rule in so capricious a passion, early love is frequently ambitious in choosing its object; or, which comes to the same, selects her (as in the case of Saint Cecilia aforesaid) from a situation that gives fair scope for le beau ideal, which the reality of intimate and familiar life rather tends to limit and impair. I knew a very accomplished and sensible young man cured of a violent passion for a pretty woman, whose talents were not equal to her face and figure, by being permitted to bear her company for a whole afternoon. — Walter Scott

As accomplished as Aboujaoude?" "He was accomplished and humble. You, my son, are ambitious. And proud. And your feet smell strongly of dung, if I am being perfectly honest. — Jeff Wheeler

It is all too easy to turn other people in our lives into a supporting cast for our life movie. The problem is that they don't follow the role or the lines we've given them. They are actual people with actual needs that get in the way of our plot, especially if they're as ambitious as we are. Sometimes, chasing your dreams can be "easier" than just being who we are, where God has placed you, with the gifts he has given to you. — Michael S. Horton

I just want ambitious teenagers to know it is totally fine to be quite, observant kids. Besides being a delight to your parents, you will find you have plenty of time later to catch up. — Mindy Kaling

It's hard to remain patient when it seems so debilitating to do so. The balance comes with staying ambitious while being patient. — Seamus Dever

No one has ever accused me of being ambitious. — Burt Shavitz

It would be nice if I was remembered at all. I don't really care about being remembered. I just want to enjoy my life today and do my best while I'm here. I'm not that ambitious, other than to have a good life now. — Sean Lennon

It was special with me being from Memphis and knowing the history of the venue, knowing all of the artists who performed in the Orpheum before me. Even having the idea to approach it was ambitious on my part, but I thought they would turn me down at first. — Yo Gotti

I would say I was always very ambitious and goal-oriented, but rather than being just a go-getter hustler, now I surrender a lot more and I trust my path a lot more. — Jenna Dewan

The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how genetic engineering and nanotechnology will abolish suffering in all sentient life. This project is ambitious but technically feasible. It is also instrumentally rational and ethically mandatory. The metabolic pathways of pain and malaise evolved only because they once served the fitness of our genes. They will be replaced by a different sort of neural architecture. States of sublime well-being are destined to become the genetically pre-programmed norm of mental health. The world's last aversive experience will be a precisely dateable event. — David Pearce

Many are ambitious of saying grand things, that is, of being grandiloquent. — Augustus Hare

I'm ambitious. I do think you have a tendency to be less happy sometimes when you're a seeker. You can be disenchanted because you're not getting what you want, and you're always striving and looking ahead instead of just being in the moment. — Matt Dillon

Being innovative in your philanthropy allows you to stride forward in your giving journey; you can marry your mind and heart to turn charity into lasting impact; and you can become more ambitious in your giving. — Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen

Still being ambitious to want to play on the record, I was a mediocre keyboard player. And uh, I seized the opportunity and played the organ. — Al Kooper

Well, I once lived in a town full of ambitious people, people who aspired to having, be it wealth or power. It was an unhappy town. Your cause may be more noble than theirs, but nevertheless it is important to know the difference between having and being. If desire burns too strong in a man it will consume him. A man who says he will not rest until he has made a certain amount of money will not rest even then, for his desire will drive him to greater wealth. A man who says he will not be happy until he has obtained a certain woman will seek another once he has had her. I know this to be true because I was such a man. If you are not happy now you may never be happy. — Danny Scheinmann

There's so many confusing messages that you're being sent about being pretty but not too pretty, smart but not too smart, ambitious but in a way that makes people comfortable. It's very hard to navigate. — Rachel Bloom

One of the achievements of our generation of feminists was to emancipate women from the division between being interested in clothes and appearance, and being serious and ambitious. I am of the first generation that could go to Biba, wear miniskirts and get a degree. — Marina Warner

Being obsessed by goals is bad for you. You should set goals, even ambitious goals, regularly. But focus on them only to the extent that they give you direction. — Srikumar Rao