Loss of Ambition Quotes

The man whose life is devoted to paperwork has lost the initiative. He is dealing with things that are brought to his notice, having ceased to notice anything for himself.

If you ask a kid what their dreams are, they will give you a list that is as long as I am tall. Once you get older that list gets shorter and shorter, so dreams shrink. I think dreams should grow as you get older.

When desire dies, fear is born.

Here's the difficulty about suicide: it is an act of ambition that can be committed only when one has passed beyond ambition.

The desire to build a risk-free society has always been a sign of decadence. It has meant that the nation has given up, that it no longer believes in its destiny, that it has ceased to aspire to greatness, and has retired from history to pet itself.

The moment a man stops dreaming is the moment he petrifies inside.

I guess that I have nothing more to aspire for.

Enslave a man and you destroy his ambition, his enterprise, and his capacity.

Once you've achieved everything, there is nothing left. You take out the core of being human: the striving.

I'm not that ambitious any more. I just like my privacy. I wish I really wasn't talked about at all.

I have often been reminded of the wild duck that came down on migration into a barnyard and liked it so well that he stayed there. In the fall his erstwhile companions passed overhead and his first impulse was to rise and join them, but he had fed too well and could rise no higher than the eaves of the barn. The day came when his old fellow travelers could pass overhead without his even hearing their call. I have seen men and women who once mounted up with wings like eagles but are now content to live in the barnyard of this world.

I had some downtime with my career and... I got complacent.

'Salaryitis' is when you become so accustomed to that salary that you no longer have the gumption to pull out of the rut and strike out on your own. It destroys the nerve of ambitious, imaginative men, and bowing to it has meant sure defeat for more people than any other sickness, mental or physical.