Famous Quotes & Sayings

Franz Liszt

It is my fervent wish and my greatest ambition to leave a work with a few useful instructions for the pianists after me.

Franz Liszt

My sole ambition as a composer is to hurl my javelin into the infinite space of the future.

Christian Wiman

There is nothing more difficult to outgrow than anxieties that have become useful to us, whether as explanations for a life that never quite finds its true force or direction, or as fuel for ambition, or as a kind of reflexive secular religion that, paradoxically, unites us with others in a shared sense of complete isolation: you feel at home in the world only by never feeling at home in the world.

Ambition, in one respect, is like a singer's voice; pitched at too high a key, it breaks and comes to nothing.

An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.

Neither love nor ambition, as it has often been shown, can brook a division of its empire in the heart.

Ambitious princes value inherited kingdoms not so much as conquered provinces.

George W. Bush

Afghanistan is the most daring and ambition mission in the history of NATO.

George W. Bush

I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.

George W. Bush

America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

Gene Tunney

My own ambition in the ring had always been skillful boxing, speed and defense - on the order of Mike Gibbons.

Garry Wills

Stevenson had noble ideas--as did the young Franklin for that matter. But Stevenson felt that the way to implement them was to present himself as a thoughtful idealist and wait for the world to flock to him. He considered it below him, or wrong, to scramble out among the people and ask them what they wanted. Roosevelt grappled voters to him. Stevenson shied off from them. Some thought him too pure to desire power, though he showed ambition when it mattered.

Frank Sinatra

I think my greatest ambition in life is to pass on to others what I know.

George Eliot

But indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In such states of mind the most incredulous person has a private leaning towards miracle: impossible to conceive how our wish could be fulfilled, still - very wonderful things have happened!

Fergus Henderson

Ambition drives you on, ability certainly helps, but the fickle finger of fate and luck are great things.

Fay Weldon

Ambition will, and should, always outstrip achievement.

Fanny Burney

A youthful mind is seldom totally free from ambition; to curb that, is the first step to contentment, since to diminish expectation is to increase enjoyment.

Francis Parkman

The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt.

Francesco Guicciardini

I know no man who feels deeper disgust than I do at the ambition, avarice, and profligacy of the priesthood, as well because every one of these vices is odious in itself, as because each of them separately and all of them together are utterly abhorrent in men making profession of a life dedicated to God.

Francesco Guicciardini

Ambition is not in itself an evil; nor is he to be condemned whose spirit prompts him to seek fame by worthy and honourable ways.

Goodluck Jonathan

My political ambition is not worth the blood of any Nigerian

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

Let some holy ambition invade our souls, so that, dissatisfied with mediocrity, we shall eagerly desire the highest things and shall toil with all our strength to obtain them, since we may if we wish.

Ian Mckellen

I'm a latecomer to popular TV. This is rather new to me, being in a sitcom. It's been an ambition of mine.

Hugh Grant

My grandmother was utterly convinced I'd wind up as the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, to be honest, I've never entirely ruled it out.

Horace

Who has courage to say no again and again to desires, to despise the objects of ambition, who is a whole in himself, smoothed and rounded.

Friedrich Nietzsche

To explore the whole sphere of the modern soul, to have sat in every nook- my ambition, my torture, and my happiness

Freeman Dyson

We do not need to have an agreed set of goals before we do something ambitious!

Roger McGough

Better is a big ambition. Some people don't want that ambition as a writer. Some people seem to want to unsettle the reader. I don't know.

Katey Sagal

So they've actually - it's not that her character is a singer, but she had ambition to do that at an earlier time in her life. So I've actually sung two or three times now on the show.

Now I have my new ambition to fly on my 100th birthday.

Once we begin to want, we fall under the jurisdiction of the Devil. It is a great force, and a great fortune, to be able to live without any ambition whatever. I aspire to it, but the very fact of so aspiring still participates in ambition.

Joanna Lumley

I've never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I've never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I'd like to do. Never. And still don't. And if something comes along, I say 'Fine.'

The solution is to limit public sector ambition to that which can be reliably delivered given the human beings available and rebuild the available UK skills base, including user management and information systems - because technology is rarely the problem.