Robert Christy, comp. Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages. 1887.
Ambition
All are desirous to win the prize.
Ambition has no rest.Bulwer.
Ambition hath one heel nailed in hell,
Though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens.Lilly.
Ambition is as hollow as the soul of an echo.
Ambition is no cure for love.Scott.
Ambition is the last infirmity of noble minds.
Ambition is the mind’s immodesty.Davenant.
Ambition is the soldier’s virtue.Shakespeare.
Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.Beecher.
Ambition is torment enough for an enemy.
Ambition knows no gorge but the grave.Carl Seelbach.
Ambition like a torrent ne’er looks back.Ben Jonson.
Ambition, thou powerful source of good or ill.Young.
Blind ambition quite mistakes her road.Young.
Blood only serves to wash ambition’s hands.Byron.
Black ambition stains a public cause.Pope.
By jumping at the stars you may fall in the mud.
Climb not too high lest the fall be the greater.
Earth’s worst tempters, gold and ambition.Bulwer.
Fling away ambition, by that sin fell the angels.Shakespeare.
He cannot see the river, his heart is set on leaping the dragon gate.Chinese.
He has gone in search of the (fabulous) birds of the sea. (Said of an ambitious person.)African.
He that cuts above himself will get splinters in his eye.
He that heweth above his height may have a chip in his eye.
He who would rise in the world should veil his ambition with the forms of humanity.Chinese.
He would fain fly but wants feathers.
He would open his hand in order to grasp the moon in the heavens, he would plunge into the sea to grasp leviathan.Chinese.
In heaven ambition cannot dwell,
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell.Southey.
It is a mean ambition to be the ’squire of the company.
Proud ambition is but a beggar.Daniel.
The trap to the high born is ambition.
There is no eel so small but it hopes to become a whale.German.
There is no fir tree so small it does not expect to become a cedar.German.
There is nothing humbler than ambition when it is about to climb.Franklin.
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
Thine own life’s means.Shakespeare.
To take ambition from a soldier is to rob him of his spurs.
Vaulting ambition o’erleaps itself.Shakespeare.