Personal Ambitions Quotes & Sayings

I can't afford to be indifferent to politics, but I don't have personal ambitions. — Vagit Alekperov

I have a few personal ambitions for the band. — John Deacon

According to its doctors, my one intransigent desire is to have been a Confederate general, and because I could not or would not become anything else, I set up for poet and beg an to invent fictions about the personal ambitions that my society has no use for. — Allen Tate

The collective benefits of higher education will not be asserted unless the public can be engaged in defining them. A student's future returns on his or her personal investment of time and money will seem more critical than the public benefits to be derived from ensuring that all students become people of character as well as of competence. An institution's prowess in potentially lucrative lines of scientific research will seem more essential to its mission than its participation in the development of an aesthetically engaged and broadly humane society. Unless there is public discussion that can help support the balancing of public and private priorities, colleges and universities will dance only to the private ambitions that ensure continuing high levels of enrollment and high ratings in the various surveys of satisfaction that give institutions a boost in national rankings. — Ellen Condliffe Lagemann

I thought of Sammy Glick rocking in his cradle of hate, malnutrition, prejudice, suspicions, amorality, the anarchy of the poor; I thought of him as a mangy puppy in a dog-eat-dog world. I was modulating my hate for Sammy Glick from the personal to the societal. I no longer even hated Rivington Street but the idea of Rivington Street, all Rivington Streets of all nationalities allowed to pile up in cities like gigantic dung heaps smelling up the world, ambitions growing out of filth and crawling away like worms. I saw Sammy Glick on a battlefield where every soldier was his own cause, his own army and his own flag, and I realized that I had singled him out not because he had been born into the world anymore selfish, ruthless and cruel than anybody else, even though he had become all three, but because in the midst of a war that was selfish, ruthless and cruel Sammy was proving himself the fittest and the fiercest and the fastest. — Budd Schulberg

Go live your dreams. It is your only daring adventure. — Lailah Gifty Akita

In our personal ambitions we are individualists. But in our seeking for economic and political progress as a nation, we all go up or else all go down as one people. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Teamwork is not a matter of persuading yourself and your colleagues to set aside personal ambitions for the greater good. It's a matter of recognizing that your personal ambitions and the ambitions of the team are one and the same. That's the incentive. — Greg Brown

Even the kindest men in the church had no idea of the many ways in which they made their wives and daughters into lesser persons than their sons and fellow male church members. 'I wouldn't be where I am today without my wife,' they say in testimony meetings. But what they are also saying is that their wives have given up their personal ambitions in favor of the ambitions of their husbands. Mormon men protect their daughters, but they encourage and cheer on their sons. — Mette Ivie Harrison

We pledge our loyalty; we affirm our determination to be of good courage; we declare, sometimes even publicly, that come what may we will do the right thing, that we will stand for the right cause, that we will be true to ourselves and to others. Then the pressures begin to build. Sometimes these are social pressures. Sometimes they are personal appetites. Sometimes they are false ambitions. There is a weakening of the will. There is a softening of discipline. There is capitulation. And then there is remorse, self-accusation, and bitter tears of regret. — Gordon B. Hinckley

We know, we feel in our guts, that decisions are constantly being made which are going to wreck our ambitions, our dreams, our personal relationships. But the people making those decisions are keeping them secret, because if they don't they'll lose the leverage they have over their subordinates. — John Brunner

In the words of the late Francis Crick ... You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. (13) — Mary Roach

Duty does not require any person to submit to the destruction of his personal ambitions and the right to live his own life in his own way. — Napoleon Hill

Unprecedented yearning for fame. In a survey in 1976, people ranked being famous 15th out of 16 possible life goals. By 2007, 51% of young people said it was one of their principal ambitions. On a recent multiple-choice quiz, nearly twice as many middle-school girls said they would rather be a celebrity's personal assistant than the president of Harvard University. — Anonymous

We can have no sympathy with those who seek the power of government to advance their own personal interests or ambitions. — Woodrow Wilson

I had found myself a new mission - and once more my recurring dilemma between corporate commercial needs and personal scientific ambitions was solved unexpectedly. — James W. Black

No people in all history paid a higher price for freedom. And no people have done so much to advance the dignity of man. We are called materialistic. May be so ... but our materialism has made our children the biggest, tallest, most handsome, and intelligent generations of Americans yet. They will live longer with fewer illnesses, learn more, see more of the world, and have more success in realizing their personal dreams and ambitions than any other people in any other period of our history - because of our materialism ... I think on our side of civilization and on the other side is the law of the jungle ... We all have to recognize that this country has been handed the responsibility, greater than any nation, to preserve some 6000 years of civilization against the barbarians. — Ronald Reagan

No right of preference exists in favor of person, property, or business. Personal claims and ambitions must yield in favor of whatever best serves the general welfare. — Charles Lindbergh

The visionary who is serving God ceases to live for personal ambitions, but rather for God's ambitions. — George Barna

In a couple, sometimes, one or both people have to give up their personal life, dreams and ambitions for the good of the family. — Monica Bellucci

Hoddan began suddenly to see real possibilities. This was not a direct move toward the realization of his personal ambitions. But on the other hand, it wasn't a movement away from them. Hoddan suddenly remembered an oration he'd heard his grandfather give many, many times in the past.
"Straight thinkin'," the old man had said obstinately, "is a delusion. You think things out clear and simple, and you can see yourself ruined and your family starving any day! But real things ain't simple! They ain't clear! Any time you try to figure things out so they're simple and straightforward, you're goin' against nature and you're going to get 'em mixed up! So when something happens and you're in a straightforward, hopeless fix - why, you go along with nature! Make it as complicated as you can, and the people who want you in trouble will get hopeless confused and you can get out! — Murray Leinster

I used to think that the causes of war were predominantly economic. I came to think that they were more psychological. I am now coming to think that they are decisively "personal," arising from the defects and ambitions of those who have the power to influence the currents of nations. — B.H. Liddell Hart

The Romans may be known for many things, but humor isn't one of them. As usual, this interpretation relies on a prima facie reading of Jesus as a man with no political ambitions whatsoever. That is nonsense. All criminals sentenced to execution received a titulus so that everyone know the crime for which they were being punished and thus be deterred from taking part in similar activity. That the wording on Jesus's titulus was likely genuine is demonstrated by Joseph A. Fitzmeyer, who notes that "if [the titulus] were invented by Christians, they would have used Christos, for early Christians would scarcely have called their Lord 'King of the Jews'."[..] the notion that a no-name Jewish peasant would have received a personal audience with the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, who had probably signed a dozen execution orders that day alone, is so outlandish that it cannot be taken seriously. — Reza Aslan

The Hindu marriage may be described as the union of two families. In this union, there is no room for petty ambitions and personal ego-trips. What is involved is love for the entire family that one is marrying into. — Dada Vaswani

My actions to promote peace, the mediation missions which I carried out during many conflicts, which very often occurred between brothers of the same country, are not driven by any ulterior motives or any calculations based on personal ambitions. — Omar Bongo

Our knowledge is limited. However, reading augments our knowledge. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The Sith were the sworn enemies of the Jedi and the Republic. They sought to wipe us from existence; they sought to rule the galaxy. ( ... ) A Dark Jedi, on the other hand, has much smaller ambitions. He -or she- thinks only of himself. He acts alone. The ultimate goal is not galactic conquest, but personal wealth and importance. Like a common thug or criminal, he revels in cruelty and selfishness. He preys upon the weak and vulnerable, spreading misery and suffering wherever he goes. — Drew Karpyshyn

The purpose of God is far greater than your own personal fulfillment or your peace of mind, or even your happiness, your family, your career or even your dreams and ambitions. — Moroaswi Tumiso Victor

Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy. — Ayn Rand

It's okay to have personal ambitions, but you have to take someone with you. — Roger Staubach

We can't all be bakers or chefs. Many of us have modest ambitions. But we can all buy a piece of the pie. — Amah Lambert

There's a lot of obsession about people's personal ambitions. — Jeb Bush

Civic duty? Perhaps it would be a little naive to try to coerce me into voting. I assure you my basic standards of healthy living are very different from yours, which is the reason I do not vote. You should note that, as nonsensical a scenario, if forced to choose I would most definitely rather live in a failing, Christ-honoring, God-fearing nation than a flourishing one that mocks said Creator. Beware of my personal ambitions. — Criss Jami

Queen songs tend to be about very personal things: personal dreams and personal ambitions. — Brian May

To become a better you, never let the attitude of pride linger around your ambitions. — Israelmore Ayivor

I am free. I am one of the few free people in this country of utterly transparent slavery. A slavery covered by a sloppy coat of contemporary varnish. I have fought a long and bloodless battle for this pitiable personal freedom. I fought for my freedom against the temptations, ambitions, and appetites witch drive everyone blindly on the slaughterhouse. To the so-called modern slaughterhouse for human dignity, honor, and for something else, too, which we forgot about a long time ago. — Tadeusz Konwicki

Though there are many barriers to expressing unreserved love, no such impediments to a developing a loving and generous heart deter a spiritual warrior. He who is without love is bereft of richness of life. Compassion, empathy, kindness, tenderness, and patience are essential for love. Anger, frustration, jealously, greed, and hatred are the antonym to love. When we love other people with all our ferocity, we transcend the misuse, waste, pain, tragedy, death, anguish, erotic obsessions, unaccountable confusion, and self-absorbed personal ambitions that, if left unchecked, numb our earthly existence. — Kilroy J. Oldster

You tell your friends your most personal secrets, and they use them against you." "Fake friends; those who only drill holes under your boat to get it leaking; those who discredit your ambitions and those who pretend they love you, but behind their backs they know they are in to destroy your legacies. — Muhammad Zeeshan Munir

We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions. — Pope Francis