"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
— Marilyn Monroe

"I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night — there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I'm not going to worry about them. I'm dreaming the hardest."
— Marilyn Monroe

"At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since."
— Salvador Dali

"We have advantages. We have a cushion to fall back on. This is abundance. A luxury of place and time. Something rare and wonderful. It's almost historically unprecedented. We must do extraordinary things. We have to. It would be absurd not to."
— Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius)

"Oh, it's delightful to have ambitions. I'm so glad I have such a lot. And there never seems to be any end to them-- that's the best of it. Just as soon as you attain to one ambition you see another one glittering higher up still. It does make life so interesting."
— L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables)

"Politeness. Now there's a poor man's virtue if ever there was one. What's so admirable about inoffensiveness, I should like to know. After all, it's easily achieved. One needs no particular talent to be polite. On the contrary, being nice is what's left when you've failed at everything else. People with ambition don't give a damn what other people think about them."
— Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale)

"Put work into your dreams."
— Lesley D. Nurse (19 Reasons Why He Really Left You Honey!)

"I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other."
— William Shakespeare (Macbeth)

"If it's IN you to climb you must -- there are those who MUST lift their eyes to the hills -- they can't breathe properly in the valleys."
— L.M. Montgomery (Emily of New Moon)

"If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly."
— Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams)

"The person who doesn't scatter the morning dew will not comb grey hairs"
— Hunter S. Thompson

"To wish a healthy man to die is the wish from a mind of sickness. To wish an ailing man to die is the wish of the ambitious."
— Roman Payne

"I’ve decided the act that cannot wait / is the important will to create / But, ah, if my belly is ignored / the pantry door I shall implore / But I’ve been known to reach the bed / ideas still famished in my head."
— Roman Payne (Cities & Countries)

"The Artist always has the masters in his eyes."
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I go dreaming into the future, where I see nothing, nothing. I have no plans, no idea, no project, and, what is worse, no ambition. Something – the eternal ‘what’s the use?’ – sets its bronze barrier across every avenue that I open up in the realm of hypothesis."
— Gustave Flaubert (Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour)

"A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions."
— Marcus Aurelius Antoninu

""The world looks very different to me now at twenty. I have outgrown my early opinions and ideals with my short dresses, just as Mrs. Walton said we would. Now the critics can say 'Thou waitest till thy woman's fingers wrought the best that lay within thy woman's heart.'"
Ha!"
— Annie Fellows Johnston (The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding)

"If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God."
— George Lois

"... the key to everything is patience... you get the chicken by hatching an egg, not by smashing it. "
— ... who knows ...

"The first virtue of a young man today - that is, for the next fifty years perhaps, as long as we live in fear, and religion has regained its powers - is to be incapable of enthusiasm and not to have much in the way of brains."
— Stendhal

"I've wanted to win at everything, every day, since I was a kid. And time doesn't change a person, it just helps you get a handle on who you are. Even at age 41, I still hate losing--I'm just more gracious about it. I'm also aware that setbacks have an upside; they fuel new dreams."
— Dara Torres (Age is Just a Number: Achieve Your Dreams At Any Stage In Your Life)

"The mayor was the most dangerous of individuals. He possessed, in equal amounts, unhealthy doses of charm and ambition. He was a driven opportunist."
— Marc Fitten

""Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved."
"
— Helen Keller

"If a person holds no ambitions in this world, he suffers unknowingly. If a person holds ambitions, he suffers knowingly, but very slowly"
— Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams)

"Where is the stoplight that dreams of stopping me in my sprint? I will uproot it; knock it down. It will stop me no more-I will carry on."
— Heather Kristina Thomas (A Place for You and Me)