#am

Throughout my lifetime I've left pieces of my heart here and there. And now, there's almost barely enough to stay alive. But I force a smile, knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent. ↗

— Johnny Depp

#ambition

Zakath stared at the floor. 'I suddenly feel very helpless,' he admitted, 'and I don't like the feeling. I've been rather effectively dethroned, you know. This morning I was the Emperor of the largest nation on earth; this afternoon, I'm going to be a vagabond.' You might find it refreshing,' Silk told him lightly. Shut up, Kheldar,' Zakath said almost absently. He looked back at Polgara. 'You know something rather peculiar?' What's that?' Even if I hadn't given my word, I'd still have to go to Kell. It's almost like a compulsion. I feel as if I'm being driven, and my driver is a blindfolded girl who's hardly more than a child.' There are rewards,' she told him. Such as what?' Who knows? Happiness, perhaps.' He laughed ironically. 'Happiness has never been a driving ambition of mine, Lady Polgara, not for a long time now.' You may have to accept it anyway,' She smiled. 'We aren't allowed to choose our rewards any more than we are our tasks. Those decisions are made for us. ↗

— David Eddings

#fantasy #happiness #ambition

Ambition is all very well, my lad, but you must cloak it. ↗

— Jonathan Stroud

#amulet-of-samarkand #bartimaeus-trilogy #jonathan-stroud #ambition

Are parents always more ambitious for their children than they are for themselves? ↗

— Jeffrey Archer

#children #parents #ambition

If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God. ↗

— George Lois

#drive #work #ambition

Excuses are merely nails used to build a house of failure. ↗

— Habeeb Akande

#determination #excuses #failure #perserverance #success

All the worlds a Stage, and the men and women mearly players! ↗

— William Shakespeare

#drama #insparation #men

…sense of futility that comes from doing anything merely to prove to yourself that you can do it: having a child, climbing a mountain, making some sexual conquest, committing suicide. The marathon is a form of demonstrative suicide, suicide as advertising: it is running to show you are capable of getting every last drop of energy out of yourself, to prove it… to prove what? That you are capable of finishing. Graffiti carry the same message. They simply say: I’m so-and-so and I exist! They are free publicity for existence. Do we continually have to prove to ourselves that we exist? A strange sign of weakness, harbinger of a new fanaticism for a faceless performance, endlessly self-evident. ↗

— Jean Baudrillard

#jean-baudrillard #sociology #advertising

I don't know the rules of grammar. If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language. ↗

— David Ogilvy

#grammar #humour #advertising

The removal of an electron from the surface of an atom - that is, the ionization of the atom - means a fundamental structural change in its surface layer. ↗

— Johannes Stark

#change #electron #fundamental #ionization #layer