It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.

Sallust

Ambition is not a vice of little people.

Michel de Montaigne

I’ve got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.

Thomas Carlyle

Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others. If you lean, you will never be strong or original. Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.

Orison Swett Marden

Ambition is the germ from which all growth of nobleness proceeds.

Oscar Wilde