Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford Quotes

Success tempts many to their ruin.

I've learned that if one is arrogant and if something bad happens to him, people won't want him to succeed. They will make more of an effort to bring him down.

Success can set the table for tragedy if the victors are not careful.

Just watch. Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business.

Riches are not forbidden, but the pride of them is.

Leaders who fail to prune their pride will meet demise. That's not a guess, it's a guarantee. With pride, it's not a matter of 'if' we will fall, but 'when.' There are no exceptions.

Be careful of success; it has a dark side.

The minute I get a big head and start acting like the big man on campus, it's all downhill from there.

Calm self-confidence is as far from conceit as the desire to earn a decent living is remote from greed.

Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting.

We rise in glory as we sink in pride.

If you live for fame, men may turn against you.

The greatest enemy a man can have is his prosperity.

He who is content with a moderate victory is always most successful; for those who would more than conquer, commonly lose.

Mad ambition trumpeteth to all

What enables us to achieve our greatness contains the seeds of our destruction.

Success can breed all kinds of other behavior and cause companies to behave a certain way that isn't necessarily the ingredients for achieving more success. For instance, with success comes arrogance, and that's typically the death of success.

When I'm considering an idea, and there is an element of hubris involved, I generally feel comfortable that it's going to be a good story. Pride goeth before a fall. It's an element of a lot of big stories.

The ministers of kings should learn to moderate their ambition. The higher they elevate themselves above their proper sphere, the greater the danger that they will fall.

I am at the top of the pyramid, but I am not stupid, and I realise that one small step could see me fall down very quickly.

Hubris is interesting, because you get people who are often very clever, very powerful, have achieved great things, and then something goes wrong - they just don't know when to stop.

It's good to have a healthy ego because that pushes you to succeed. But when you cross a line, and your views are not balanced, that's when you get into trouble.

Ego is certainly there in many of the greatest and most dizzying tales of success - but it's there in some of the greatest stories of failure and self-implosion as well.