"To want something desperately, to be tested, to feel that life will be impossible if the object of one's desires is not achieved, is always dangerous for the soul. Some people attempt to climb Everest because, as they say, it is there; others want nothing but wealth and care little how or where they collect it; others still, with less avaricious tastes - perhaps desiring nothing more than freedom from fear - are blinded by the same personal sun that shines on all human ambition. At some time or another it burns most of us."
- Bryan Forbes, International Velvet

"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."
- Jeremy Clarkson

"So ambitious men, if they find the way open for their rising, and still get forward, they are rather busy than dangerous; but if they be checked in their desires, they become secretly discontent, and look upon men and matters with an evil eye, and are best pleased, when things go backward."
- Francis Bacon, 'Of Ambition', Essays