H. L. Mencken Quotes

A man of irregular and insatiable ambition ...who ought not be trusted with the reins of government

[William Jennings Bryan was] a poor clod, a peasant come home to the barnyard, motivated solely by the ambition of a common man to get his hand upon the collar of his superiors, or, failing that, to get his thumb into their eyes.

It's the first villain that I've played in a movie that has absolutely no vulnerability and no innocence, nothing whatsoever that is likeable about her other than she's so bad.

I'm a mad dog whose only concern is winning.

From a young age, I was viciously competitive.

Such is human nature, in the gigantic intellect, the envious temper, the ravenous ambition, and the rotten heart of Daniel Webster.

Maniacal self-promoter …. Makes Machiavelli look like a simple, straightforward kinda guy.

I want the target on my back. I want everybody to come after me. That's been my goal since I started fighting.

I don't plan on slowing down. I'm going to keep steamrolling through everybody.

There's room at the top they are telling you still, but first you must learn how to smile as you kill.

I'm a very relentless individual and have a lot more insanity coming.

I'm certainly driven, I hate losing, I can be ruthless and short-tempered and terribly competitive.

Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.

When that man wants something, he'll stop at nothing to get it. And I also believed in the good of him.

Lady Limelight is a jealous lady. She wants all of your attention. You don't have any time to think of anything else but Lady Limelight, because pretty soon that light will be shinning on somebody else. So you better do it while you can.

In politics, they play games. In Hollywood, they play games. I think that, overall, everybody is trying to do whatever it takes to get ahead.

I kept bugging them about making it more upscale, because I felt Abby, through her cleverness and business sense, was a character who would move up. And that's what she did.

Everyone has determination - it's a question of how you use it. Hers is based on power and success and conquering; she doesn't care what she has to do or who gets hurt in the process. In that way we're very, very different.

I made up my mind that I wanted everything, and nothing would stop me.

Those people are unabashedly ruthless as far as money is concerned.

Theodore betrays his friends for his own ambition.

Under every stone lurks a politician

A rigid, fanatic, ambitious, selfishly partisan and sectional turncoat with too much genius and too little common sense, who will either die a traitor or a madman.

We have come to see him as not vital but violent, not clever but devious, not shrewd but cynical.