Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top. Robert Burton
Ambition is like love, impatient both of delays and rivals. Denham
Accurst ambition, how dearly I have bought you. John Dryden
Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds. Thomas English
Nothing arouses ambition so much in the heart as the trumpet-clang of another's fame. Baltasar Gracian
O cursed ambition, thou devouring bird, how dost thou from the field of honesty pick every grain of profit or delight, and mock the reaper's toil! Harvard
Ambition: The glorious frailty of the noble mind. Hoole
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him. Samuel Johnson
A slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many masters as there are persons whose aide may contribute to the advancement of his fortune. Jean La Bruyere
Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more. John Lubbock
Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast, that however high we reach we are never satisfied. Niccolo Machiavelli
Ambition is a lust that's never quenched, grows more inflamed, and madder by enjoyment. Otway
Ambition, idly vain; revenge and malice swell her tra Penrose
Be always displeased at what thou art, if thou desire to attain to what thou art not; for where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest. Quarles
No bounds his head long, vast ambition knows. Rowe
'Tis a common proof, that lowliness is Edward Young ambition's ladder, where to the climber upwards turns his face; but when he once attains the utmost round, he then unto the ladder turns his back, looks into the clouds scorning the base degrees by which he did ascend. William Shakespeare
Ambition's like a circle on the water, which never ceases to enlarge itself, 'till by broad spreading it disperse to nought. William Shakespeare
Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. And I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shad William Shakespeare