Top 1200 Selfish Ambition Quotes & Sayings

I don't know if it's ever OK for someone to be selfish. Perhaps there's a time and place to be self-centered, but I think selfish never wins the race.

A lot of times, people think of selfish, and they think of offense, but you can be selfish on the defensive end of the floor, too. If you don't uphold your end of our schemes and your responsibilities within those schemes, then you're being just as selfish.

Do you know what my ambition is in life? To be without ambition. As far back as I can remember I've been absolutely hag-ridden. I'd like to attain the state of mind that the Indians call Nirvana. That, for me, would happen if I were free of ambition.

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.

Someone like Boris Johnson is reluctant to answer questions about ambition because then the story becomes all about his ambition. Sure, he's got ambition - that's no secret at all. But also, he's very strongly motivated to try to get the kind of Brexit he believes in.

We start making every child ambitious, and ambition means you cannot love; ambition is anti-love. Ambition needs fight, ambition needs struggle, ambition needs you to use others as a means.

Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?

Every noble action is selfish. Some selfish actions are nobler than others. But they are all selfish. And as such there can be no action purely noble anyway. Even the nobility in God's great philosophical intentions is bounded by his vanity.

My ambition is limited to the desire to capture something transient, and yet, this ambition is excessive.

An objective is an ambition, and life without ambition is ... well, aimless wandering.

Inflammatory passion and selfish interest characterizes most men, whereas ambition characterizes men who pursue and hold national office. Such men rise from the people through a process of self-selection, since politics is a dirty business that discourages all but the most ambitious.

I wasn't good enough for abnegation," I say, "and I wanted to be free. So I chose Dauntless." "Why weren't you good enough?" "Because I was selfish." I say. "You were selfish? You aren't anymore?" "Of course I am. My mother said that everyone is selfish," I say, "but I became less selfish in Dauntless. I discovered there were people I would fight for. Die for, even.

Without ambition no conquests are made, and no business created. Ambition is the root of all achievement.

I wasn't really interested in doing television. I don't have that much ambition. My agent, Eileen Feldman, has all the ambition for me.

My ambition in the cinema, since I came across it, was to play Chance... I have realized that ambition, and so I have no more.

If my ambition in Tottenham is only to win the Carabao Cup or FA Cup, with all the respect for that, I think my ambition does not match the ambition of a club like Tottenham.

My ambition is to not embarrass myself--which, if you know me, is a pretty serious ambition.

The fuel of ambition is not the problem; it is the focus of ambition that frees or betrays us.

A man shrinks or expands into the degree and nature of his ambition. Ambition needs to be cultivated and refined, and yet has no teachers.

Florey was not an easy personality. His drive and ambition were manifest from the day he arrived ... He could be ruthless and selfish; on the other hand, he could show kindliness, a warm humanity and, at times, sentiment and a sense of humour.

Ambition, I have come to believe, is the most primal and sacred and fundament of our being. To feel ambition and to act upon it is to embrace the unique calling of our souls. Not to act upon that ambition is to turn our backs on ourselves and on the reason for our existence.

Timothy's great value was that he was always willing to go anywhere; and in his hands a message was as safe as if Paul had delivered it himself. Others might be consumed with selfish ambition; but Timothy's one desire was to serve Paul and Jesus Christ. He is the patron saint of all those who are quite content with the second place, so long as they can serve.

The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspires men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life.

America was built on rugged individualism, and today that has evolved into a culture of narcissism. But God didn't create you to live for you. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to put aside your selfish ambition.

Individuals motivated by self-interest, self-indulgence, and a false sense of self-sufficiency pursue selfish ambition for the purpose of self-glorification.

We cannot free ourselves from pride and selfish ambition; a divine rescue is absolutely necessary.

Each child is poisoned by the society through teaching him ambition. Ambition is a poison far more dangerous than any alcohol can ever be, far more dangerous than marijuana or LSD, because ambition destroys your whole life. It keeps you moving in a false direction. It keeps you imagining, desiring, dreaming, it keeps you wasting your life. Ambition means a subtle creation of the ego, and once the ego is created you are in the grip of darkness. And the whole social structure depends on ambition.

Just as blueprints don't necessarily specify blue buildings, selfish genes don't necessarily specify selfish organisms. As we shall see, sometimes the most selfish thing a gene can do is build a selfless brain. Genes are a play within a play, not the interior monologue of the players.

The dictionary describes a selfish person as one who is 'concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking pleasure or well-being without regard for others.' May we add, a selfish person is often one who refers to 'I,' 'me,' and 'mine' rather than to 'we,' 'ours,' 'yours,' or 'theirs.' This person is anxious to be in the limelight, to be on center stage in life's little dramas. He or she may be a poor listener, or a conversation monopolizer. Selfishness is the great unknown sin. No selfish person ever thought himself to be selfish.

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.

Musically, I have little ambition. The only real ambition I have is to make music and do music whenever I feel like it, without any real ambition or planning.

How to find joy? Let your ambition disappear; ambition is the barrier. Ambition means an ego trip: "I want to be this, I want to be that - more money, more power, more prestige."

'Intensity' is a good word. It's like ambition, if it's not ambition at expense of someone else.

A lot of people were saying that I was a selfish person and a selfish player. You know, it got to me.

Love makes money-grabbing seem contemptible; love makes class prejudice impossible; love makes selfish ambition a thing to be despised; love converts enemies into friends.

Ambition is not a weakness unless it be disproportioned to the capacity. To have more ambition than ability is to be at once weak and unhappy.

If you're an actor, and you're selfish and not strong, it's difficult to maintain a good personal life or a solid career, and I was selfish and had a lot of anger that went way back.

There is scarce any passion so heartily decried by moralists and satirists, as AMBITION; and yet, methinks, ambition is not a vice but in a vicious mind: in a virtuous mind it is a virtue, and will be found to take its color from the character in which it is mixed. Ambition is a desire of superiority; and a man may become superior, either by making others less or himself greater.

The largest ambition has the least appearance of ambition when it meets with an absolute impossibility in compassing its object.

Politics these days is a disgusting game of mud-slinging, filled with selfish people with selfish aims. I'm very glad I've retired away from the hustle and bustle of Whitehall.

But if I decide to decide there’s a different, less selfish, less lonely point to my life, won’t the reason for this decision be my desire to be less lonely, meaning to suffer less overall pain? Can the decision to be less selfish ever be anything other than a selfish decision?

I have an ambition to live 300 years. I will not live 300 years. Maybe I will live one year more. But I have the ambition. Why you will not have ambition? Why? Have the greatest ambition possible. You want to be immortal? Fight to be immortal. Do it. You want to make the most fantastic art or movie? Try. If you fail, is not important. We need to try.

I have been absolutely hag-ridden with ambition. If I could wish to have anything in the world it would be to be free of ambition.

I've always been antagonistic to any naïve application of the selfish gene theory to politics. Some people have attempted to suggest that it means we are selfish or we should be selfish.

I remember sitting on a bench in New York and sobbing and realising that my ambition to be a singer was making me selfish - I was a mother with two children, and I needed a backup plan.

I don't know many ambition- ridden people who really enjoy themselves. Even success doesn't seem to still the insatiable, gnawing hunger of their ambition. Ambition is a good gift, but it cannot be all.

It can be seen as being quite selfish, but I'm very happy to be selfish.

Many people wants to be the president...they have ambition. Just ambition is not enough.

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

You need just the right amount of ambition . . . If you have too little ambition, you don't push or work hard. If you have too much ambition, you put yourself ahead of others, elbow them out of your way.

You're either selfish, or you're a servant...but fundamentally selfish people are terrible friends, terrible lovers, terrible spouses, terrible Christians, terrible parents. They leave a terrible legacy. Will you be selfish? Will you be a servant?...A good marriage is a servant and a servant.

I had huge ambition for literature. I don't see the point of doing anything if you don't have ambition for it.

His enemies said he [Robert Kennedy] was consumed with selfish ambition, a ruthless opportunist exploiting his brother's legend. But he was too passionate and too vulnerable ever to be the cool and confident operator his brother was.

He was probably selfish in the sack. Probably selfish and greedy and...unsophisticated. And hung like a horse.

I've never really understood the criticism that climbing is inherently selfish, since it could equally be argued about virtually any other hobby or sport. Is gardening selfish?

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

It is important that when pursing our own self-interest we should be 'wise selfish' and not 'foolish selfish'. Being foolish selfish means pursuing our own interests in a narrow, shortsighted way. Being wise selfish means taking a broader view and recognizing that our own long-term individual interest lies in the welfare of everyone. Being wise selfish means being compassionate.

Ambition is a commendable attribute, without which no man succeeds. Only inconsiderate ambition imperils.

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.

Having the ambition of becoming Olympic champion is a whole different ambition from wanting to be the greatest.