ambition (n.)
- aim
- ambitiousness
- animus
- anxiety
- appetite
- aspiration
- avidity
- basis
- calling
- careerism
- catch
- cause
- climbing
- consideration
- counsel
- craving
- desideratum
- design
- desire
- determination
- dream
- drive
- eagerness
- effect
- energy
- enterprise
- enthusiasm
- fancy
- function
- get-up-and-go
- go-ahead
- goad
- goal
- ground
- hope
- hunger
- idea
- ideal
- incentive
- initiative
- inspiration
- intent
- intention
- keenness
- lodestar
- lodestone
- magnanimity
- magnet
- mainspring
- mark
- matter
- meaning
- mind
- motive
- nirvana
- nisus
- object
- objective
- plan
- plum
- point
- pretension
- principle
- prize
- project
- proposal
- prospectus
- purpose
- push
- reason
- resolution
- resolve
- sake
- score
- source
- spirit
- spring
- spur
- striving
- study
- target
- temptation
- thirst
- trophy
- view
- vigor
- vocation
- will
- wish
- zeal
ambition (v.)
Awake, my St. John! leave all meaner things
To low ambition and the pride of kings.
Let us (since life can little more supply
Than just to look about us, and to die)
Expatiate free o'er all this scene of man;
A mighty maze! but not without a plan.
Low ambition and the thirst of praise.
Such joy ambition finds.
I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels.
What is your sex's earliest, latest care,
Your heart's supreme ambition? To be fair.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land.
O fading honours of the dead!
O high ambition, lowly laid!
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
Written in a glass window obvious to the Queen's eye. "Her Majesty,
either espying or being shown it, did under-write, 'If thy heart fails thee,
climb not at all.'"—
Who does i' the wars more than his captain can
Becomes his captain's captain; and ambition,
The soldier's virtue, rather makes choice of loss,
Than gain which darkens him.
Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up
Thine own life's means!
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself,
And falls on the other.
