Limited Ambition Quotes

When small men attempt great enterprises, they always end by reducing them to the level of their mediocrity.

The reason why women effect so little and are so shallow is because their aims are low, marriage is the prize for which they strive; if foiled in that they rarely rise above disappointment.

Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor.

If we insist on being as sure as is conceivable... we must be content to creep along the ground, and never soar.

Coming from a small town, I didn't have big dreams. My biggest ambition was to find a job for myself.

No, I'm not angling for huge fame. My career has been a very slow, arduous climb to the middle.

I just try to stay in my little circle. And I don't try to do too much. And when my opportunity comes, I just try to make the most of it.

It's very Finnish to think you can't make it outside Finland.

My goal was to do anything that would lead to a job. I know that writing would not lead to a job. It's too fancy for me. My biggest goal was to be an office receptionist, answer phones. I didn't expect to go beyond that.

Men with common minds seldom break through general rules. Prudence is ever the resort of weakness; and they rarely go as far as as they may in any undertaking, who are determined not to go beyond it on any account.

I'm not interested in overexpanding rapidly for expansion's sake.

Tis but a base, ignoble mind That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

Any system which allows men to choose their own future will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach.

I hate that we look at women who choose not to run a country as having given up. I get angry that, when a woman decides to hold off on gunning for a promotion because she wants to have a baby, other women whisper that 'she's throwing away her potential.' That is when we're not supporting our own. Who are we to put such a limited definition on success?

I had no aspirations beyond middle school except to wrestle, no reason to go into high school. This world is all I've known since 15 years of age.

There's not some idea I'm going to create a work that's going to change everybody's consciousness.

And I'll never let myself down..How so? I don't expect too much from me.

The generality of men are so bound within the sphere of their circumstances that they have not even the courage to get out of them through their ideas, and if we see a few whom, in a way, speculation over great things makes incapable of mean ones, we find still more with whom the practice of small things takes away the feeling for great ones.