You May Also Like / View all maxioms
Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you read more
Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly far higher than if you had aimed at an object on a level with yourself.
Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, read more
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.
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low
As high read more
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? who aspires must down as low
As high he soar'd, obnoxious first and last
To basest things.
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, read more
The shades of night were falling fast,
As through an Alpine village passed
A youth, who bore, 'mid snow and ice
A banner with the strange device,
Excelsior!
On what strange stuff Ambition feeds!
On what strange stuff Ambition feeds!
Be nice to people on your way up because you might meet 'em on
your way down.
Be nice to people on your way up because you might meet 'em on
your way down.
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by read more
A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.
Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme; to be sublimely great or to read more
Ambition is an idol, on whose wings great minds are carried only to extreme; to be sublimely great or to be nothing.
We grow small trying to be great.
We grow small trying to be great.