A Quote by Seneca the Younger
It is the constant fault and inseparable evil quality of ambition, that it never looks behind it.
Related Quotes
Wisdom is corrupted by ambition, even when the quality of the ambition is intellectual. For ambition, even of this quality, is but a form of self-love.
Ambition is a very dangerous thing because either you achieve it and your life ends prematurely, or you don't, in which case your life is a constant source of disappointment. You must never have ambition.
The founder of Dell found ways of delivering Hewlett Packard's most profitable products for much lower prices but forgot to deliver their quality so within a few years had fallen behind again. Ideas need constant renewal. A great idea will never be perfect and will never work perfectly in all markets and all seasons.
An evil man is a saint of the future. See good in everything. Destroy the evil-finding quality. Develop the good-finding quality. Rise above good and evil.
A couple of days back, I got into a car accident. Not my fault. Even if it's not your fault, the other person gets out of their car and looks at you like it's your fault: Why did you stop at a red light and let me hit you doing 80!
Ambition, like a torrent, never looks back.
The ideas of control and improvements are often confused with one another. This is because quality control and quality improvement are inseparable.
The whole society depends on creating ambition in you. Ambition means a conflict, ambition means that whatsoever you are, you are wrong - you have to be somewhere else. Wherever you are, you are wrong - you have to be somewhere else. A constant madness to be somewhere else, to be somebody else, is what ambition is.
There's a constant debate over nature or nurture - they're inseparable.
There's a point at which when I start to know a man well--this isn't true of women--I wonder whether there's something in him that's evil. Something that's pure and can't be touched. This quality of evil may be related to the quality of artistry, for an artist has the same characteristics.
I also think you have to be very careful. I mean, the heritage of our company is very strong, and building some of these businesses into leading players is extremely tough. You and I can both build a trading business, and it looks like you're doing OK, and it looks like I'm doing OK. But, really, I am, and you aren't. It comes down to the quality of clients, quality of systems, quality of risk controls.
The effects which follow too constant and intense a concentration upon evil are always disastrous. Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself.
What is evil? Killing is evil, lying is evil, slandering is evil, abuse is evil, gossip is evil, envy is evil, hatred is evil, to cling to false doctrine is evil; all these things are evil. And what is the root of evil? Desire is the root of evil, illusion is the root of evil.
The amount of guilt you deal with as a parent is pretty profound. It's a constant balancing act. I'm an ambitious person, but when I became a father, ambition had a different hold on me. Providing for my kids was important, but the superficial ambition drifted away.
My parents never really pushed me, but I was so hard on myself. I would say I had some perfectionist quality, to a fault.
We never pull down the quality of the product, and I think that pays in the long term. People come up to me and say, 'I'm still wearing a Missoni sweater from 30 years ago, and it still looks great.' So quality, specificity and passion.
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