Ambition

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. ~LAO TSU

A man has only one way of being immortal on this earth:  he has to forget he is mortal. ~JEAN GIRAUDOUX

A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve. ~OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life. ~CHARLES DARWIN

"A single grain of rice can tip the scale." ~The Emperor, “MULAN”

A will finds a way. ~ORISON SWETT MARDEN

Above all, try something. ~FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

Aim at the sun and you may not reach it; but your arrow will fly higher than if aimed at an object on a level with yourself. ~JOEL HAWES

All ambitions are lawful except those that climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind. ~HENRY WARD BEECHER

All life is action and passion, it is required of man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at peril of being judged not to have lived. ~OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Always aim for achievement, and forget about success. ~HELEN HAYES

Always take a job that is too big for you. ~HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK

An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox. ~Mexican PROVERB

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count.  It's the life in your years. ~ABRAHAM LINCOLN

...and then suddenly there flashed through my mind this thought:  "You must do something, but inasmuch as with your limited capacities it will be impossible to make anything easier that it has become, you must, with the same humanitarian enthusiasm as the others, undertake to make something harder. ~SOREN KIERKEGAARD, Concluding Unscientific Postscript

As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, THINK BIG. ~DONALD TRUMP

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work. ~BETTE DAVIS

Begin doing what you want to do now.  We are not living in eternity.  We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand--and melting like a snowflake. ~MARIE BENON RAY

But the world does move, and its motive power under God is the fearless thought and speech of those who dare to be in advance of their time... They are the masts and sails of the ship to which conservatism answers as ballast.  The ballast is important--at times indispensable--but it would be of no account if the ship were not bound to go ahead. ~HORACE GREELEY

Carpe diem.  (Seize the day.) ~HORATIUS

Compared to what we ought to be, we are only half awake.  We are making use of only a small part of our mental and physical resources.  Stating the thing broadly, the human individual thus lives far within his limits.  He possesses power of various sorts which he habitually fails to use. ~WILLIAM JAMES

Death tugs at my ear and says:  "Live, I am coming." ~OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES SR.

Do not try your luck once.

Try it again and again. ~Zande PROVERB

Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin. ~GRACE HANSEN

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it.  The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. ~EARL NIGHTINGALE

Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ~JOHN WOODEN

Don't wait.  The time will never be just right. ~NAPOLEON HILL

Each of us should do something every day that we do not want to do but know we should do, to strengthen our backbone and put iron in our soul. ~HENRY HITT CRANE

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. ~MARTIN LUTHER

Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. ~WILL ROGERS

...every human being has a strong natural bent and passion to become something more and different. ~SOREN KIERKEGAARD, Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat. ~THEODORE ROOSEVELT

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. ~EPICTETUS

From a tiny spark may burst a mighty flame.  ~DANTE

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles today,

Tomorrow will be dying. ~ROBERT HERRICK

Get a good idea and stay with it.  Dog it, and work at it until it's done right. ~WALT DISNEY

Give the world the best you have and you may get hurt.

Give the world your best anyway. ~MOTHER TERESA

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. ~VINCENT VAN GOGH

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true. ~L. J. CARDINAL SUENENS

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished:  If you're alive, it isn't. ~RICHARD BACH, Illusions

Hitch your wagon to a star. ~RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you.  Never excuse yourself. ~HENRY WARD BEECHER

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them. ~PABLO PICASSO

I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it. ~JONATHAN WINTERS

“I do the very best I know how, the very best I can.” ~ABRAHAM LINCOLN

“I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” ~ABRAHAM LINCOLN

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving--we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.” ~OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

“I have learned this at least by my experiment:  that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” ~HENRY DAVID THOREAU

“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.” ~HENRY DAVID THOREAU

“I would rather be ashes than dust!  I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry-rot.  I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom in me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.” ~JACK LONDON

“If a man has come to that point where he is so content that he says; I do not want to know any more, or do any more or be any more, he is in a state which he ought to be changed into a mummy.” ~HENRY WARD BEECHER

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? ~ALBERT EINSTEIN

...if we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin. ~IVAN TURGENEV

If we want to make something really superb of this planet, there is nothing whatever that can stop us. ~SHEPHERD MEAD

If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. ~ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT

If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. ~ANTHONY ROBBINS

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put the foundations under them. ~HENRY DAVID THOREAU

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder the work the more I have of it. ~THOMAS JEFFERSON

It is a funny thing about life:  if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it. ~SOMERSET MAUGHAM

It is best to learn as we go, not go as we have learned. ~LESLIE JEANNE SAHLER

It is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while. ~DON MARQUIS

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out where the strong man stumbled, or where a doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, and who comes up short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause.  The man who at best knows the triumph of high achievement and who at worst, if he fails, fails while daring greatly, so that his place will never be with those cold timid souls who never knew victory or defeat. ~THEODORE ROOSEVELT

It is very important in life to know when your cue comes. ~SOREN KIERKEGAARD, 1836

It's better to be an authentic loser than a false success, and to die alive than to live dead. ~WILLIAM MARKIEWICZ

It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top. ~ARNOLD BENNET

It's not over until it's over. ~YOGI BERRA

I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom. ~ANGUS GROSSART

Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do.  Where there's love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong. ~ELLA FITZGERALD

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground. ~THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Life is a big canvas, throw all the paint on it you can. ~DANNY KAYE

Life is like a ten-speed bicycle.  Most of us have gears we never use.  ~Snoopy, Peanuts by CHARLES SCHULZ

Life is no brief candle to me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. ~GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Life is real!  Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returneth,

Was not spoken of the soul. ~HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Make voyages.  Attempt them.  There's nothing else. ~TENNESEE WILLIAMS

Man who waits for roast duck to fly into mouth must wait very, very long time. ~Chinese PROVERB

Many the lumps of frankincense on the same altar; one falls there early and another late, but it makes no difference. ~MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS

Men can do all things if they will. ~LEON BATTISTA ALBERTI

Men do less than they ought, unless they do all that they can. ~THOMAS CARLYLE

Men take only their needs into consideration--never their abilities. ~NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. ~HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

Move out man!  Life is fleeting by.

Do something worthwhile, before you die.

Leave behind a work sublime,

That will outlive you and time. ~ALFRED A. MONTEPERT

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed it's the only thing that ever has. ~MARGARET MEAD

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. ~WILLIAM BLAKE

Nothing can come out of nothing, any more than a thing can go back to nothing. ~MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. ~HELEN KELLER

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.  "Which road do I take?" she asked.  "Where do you want to go?" was his response.  "I don't know," Alice answered.  "Then, said the cat, it doesn't matter." ~LEWIS CARROLL (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson)

One good thing about being young is that you are not experienced enough to know you cannot possibly do the things you are doing. ~GENE BROWN

One of the saddest experiences which can come to a human being is to awaken, gray-haired and wrinkled, near the close of an unproductive career, to the fact that all through the years he has been using only a small part of himself. ~V. W. BURROWS

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. ~T. S. ELIOT

Opportunities multiply as they are seized. ~SUN TZU

Opportunity dances with those who are ready on the dance floor. ~HOBART JACKSON BROWN

Opportunity does not knock, it presents itself when you beat down the door. ~KYLE CHANDLER

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.  We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It isn't just some of us, it is everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~NELSON MANDELA

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are.  I don't believe in circumstances.  The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, they make them. ~GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change.  They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in.  Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life's circumstances to push them down and hold them under. ~CHARLES R. SWINDOLL

Pursue worthy aims. ~SOLON

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul.  Dream deep, for ever dream precedes the goal.

Real generosity toward the future consists in giving all to what is present. ~ALBERT CAMUS

Remember, there are no small parts, only small actors. ~KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKI

Rest not!  Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. ~JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it.  Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure.  Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. ~HELEN KELLER

Stability is not immobility. ~PRINCE KLEMENS von METTERNICH

Take heed.  You do not find what you do not seek. ~English PROVERB

The ambitious climb high and perilous stairs, and never care how to come down; the desire of rising hath swallowed up their fear of a fall. ~THOMAS ADAMS

The art of using moderate abilities to advantage often brings greater results than actual brilliance. ~FRANCIS, DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD

The average man who does not know what to do with his life, wants another one which will last forever. ~ANATOLE FRANCE

The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a curse. ~CARLOS CASTENEDA

The best use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts life. ~WILLIAM JAMES

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn. ~RALPH WALDO EMERSON

The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become. ~ASHLEY MONTAGU

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done. ~DAVID LLOYD GEORGE

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream. ~WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. ~WALTER BAGEHOT

The greatest danger to human beings is their consciousness of the trivialities of their aims. ~GERARD BRENNAN

The greatest thing a man can do in this world is to make the most possible out of the stuff that has been given him.  This is success, and there is no other. ~ORISON SWETT MARDEN

The heights by great men reached and kept

Were not attained by sudden flight,

But they, while their companions slept,

Were toiling upward in the night. ~HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment. ~ALFRED ADLER

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. ~SIR JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE

The men who make history have no time to write about it. ~PRINCE KLEMENS von METTERNICH

The philosophers have only interpreted the world; the thing, however, is to change it. ~KARL MARX

The teaching in the establishment, and its institutions, are very good.  But the existences, our lives--believe me, they are mediocre. ~SOREN KIERKEGAARD, My Life's Significance in This Age, 1851

There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today. ~MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN

There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other. ~DOUGLAS EVERETT

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. ~ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

There is only one time that is important--NOW!  It is the most important time because it is the only time that we have any power. ~COUNT LEO TOLSTOY

Three grand essentials to happiness in life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. ~JOSEPH ADDISON

To do anything truly worth doing, I must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in with gusto and scramble through as well as I can. ~OG MANDINO

To quote me the authority of precedents leaves me quite unmoved.  All human progress has been made by ignoring precedents.  If mankind had continued to be the slave of precedent we should still be living in caves and subsisting on shellfish and wild berries. ~VISCOUNT PHILIP SNOWDEN

Too low they build who build below the skies. ~EDWARD YOUNG

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover. ~MARK TWAIN

Undertake something that is difficult; it will do you good.  Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow. ~RONALD E. OSBORN

Use what talent you possess:  the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. ~HENRY VAN DYKE

We do not count a man's years until he has nothing else to count. ~RALPH WALDO EMERSON

We make way for the man who boldly pushes past us. ~CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE

We will either find a way or make one. ~HANNIBAL

What can be done at any time is never done at all. ~English PROVERB

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway. ~MOTHER TERESA

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong.  There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right.  To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage. ~RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. ~JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

What's a Sun-Dial in the Shade? ~BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart. ~CONFUCIUS

Who begins too much accomplished little. ~German PROVERB

With the possible exception of the equator, everything begins somewhere. ~PETER ROBERT FLEMING

Without ambition one starts nothing.  Without work one finishes nothing.  The prize will not be sent to you.  You have to win it.  The man who knows how will always have a job.  The man who also knows why will always be his boss.  As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few.  The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods.  The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble. ~RALPH WALDO EMERSON

You cannot discover new oceans, unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. ~ANDRE GIDE

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.  Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes. ~RABINDRANATH TAGORE

You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint paradise, then in you go. ~NIKOS KAZANTZAKIS

Your future depends on many things, but mostly you. ~FRANK TYGER