A Quote by Christian Nestell Bovee

An ambition to excel in petty things obstructs the progress to nobler aims.

Christian Nestell Bovee

Quote Topics

Aims Ambition Excel Petty Progress Things

Quote Author

Christian Nestell Bovee
American - Author
February 22, 1820 - January 18, 1904

Men have various subjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel and yet are doubtful whether they do or not.

Lord Chesterfield

I heard that [Clarkson] said some petty things about someone I care deeply about, so I just made some petty remarks 'cause I'm a petty guy.

Bill Vaughan

My big ambition was to be Richard Petty.

Michael Madsen

There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, gay, ready, clear, and welcome.

Robert Louis Stevenson

When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.

Henry David Thoreau

The man of petty ambition if invited to dinner will be eager to be set next his host.

Theophrastus

But see how oft ambition's aims are cross'd, and chiefs contend 'til all the prize is lost!

Alexander Pope

Great things alone can make a great mind, and petty things will make a petty mind unless a man rejects them as completely alien.

Carl von Clausewitz

The philosophy I shared... was one of ambition - ambition to succeed, ambition to grow, ambition to move forward - backed up by hard work.

Frank Lowy

Whoever aims publicly at great things and at length perceives secretly that he is too weak to achieve them, has usually also insufficient strength to renounce his aims publicly, and then inevitably becomes a hypocrite.

Friedrich Nietzsche

To the lazy man the world appears bereft of all blessings; if poor, he has no friends; if rich, he has no ambition; he aims at nothing, and generally hits his mark.

James Ellis

Ultimately there can be no freedom for self unless it is vouchsafed for others; there can be no security where there is fear, and a democratic society presupposes confidence and candor in the relations of men with one another and eager collaboration for the larger ends of life instead of the pursuit of petty, selfish or vainglorious aims.

Felix Frankfurter

If the leader is filled with high ambition and if he pursues his aims with audacity and strength of will, he will reach them in spite of all obstacles.

Carl von Clausewitz

All human excellence is but comparative — there are persons who excel us, as much as we fancy we excel the meanest.

Samuel Richardson

Desiring to excel is not a sin. It is motivation that determines ambition's character. Our Lord never taught against the urge to high achievement, but He did expose and condemn unworthy motivation.