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Careers and Ambition Quotes
 

 

Top 40 Careers and Ambition Quotes

 

No 1 (Best quote!)Careers and Ambition Quotes

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

- Confucius (551–479 BC), Chinese philosopher, pictured right.

 

Two other famous people agree:

Careers and Ambition Quotes

 

Whatever one’s doing in life, do it well, enjoy doing it and do it with a smile

- Richard Branson (1950-), founder of the British company, Virgin (pictured right).

Careers and Ambition Quotes

 

Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time,

- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist (pictured right)

 

 

Careers and Ambition Quotes

No 2

If you’re not distinct, you’re extinct.,

- Tom Peters (1942-) management writer, pictured right.

Careers and Ambition Quotes

 

Coco Chanel (1883-1971), French designer and businesswoman (pictured right) puts this another way:

In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different

 

Careers and Ambition Quotes

 

No 3

Individual competitiveness = what you know x [and] who you know,

Kjell Nordstrom (pictured right above) and Jonas Ridderstrale, pictured right below in Careers and Ambition QuotesFunky Business (2000)

 

 

 

No 4Careers and Ambition Quotes

Unhappiness is best described as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

- Edward de Bono (1933- ), creative thinking expert, pictured right.

 

 

No 5Business Success Quotes

Nobody owes you a career.

- Andrew Grove (1936- ) , American boss of Intel 1987-98, pictured right.

 

 

No 6Careers and Ambition Quotes

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), German missionary pictured right.

 

 

Careers and Ambition Quotes

No 7

Be, know, do.

- American army slogan.

 

 

No 8Careers and Ambition Quotes

Character is higher than intellect.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American writer and philosopher, pictured right.

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

But Max De Pree (pictured right) says in his book, Leadership is an Art:

Character cannot replace competence

 

 

Careers and Ambition Quotes

No 9

What makes ambition virtue? The sense of honour.

- William Pitt (1708-78), British prime minister 1766-8, pictured right.

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

Cicero (106-43 BC), the Roman philosopher and politician (pictured right), agrees:

Ability without honour is useless

 

 

No 10Careers and Ambition Quotes

Life is an opportunity not an obligation.

- Lao Tzu (c604-c531 BC) Chinese philosopher, pictured right.

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

The French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), pictured right, agrees:

Ability is nothing without opportunity

 

 

No 11Careers and Ambition Quotes

Find the work in which you can give of your best.

- J.K. Rowling (1965-), English writer (pictured right).

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

Katherine Whitehorn (1928- ), the English journalist, pictured right, agrees:

Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.

 

 

No 12Careers and Ambition Quotes

Success is that old ABC - ability, breaks and courage.

- Charles Luckman (1909-99), American architect, pictured right.

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

 

No 13

Life is short, the art long.

- Hippocrates (c460-c370 BC), Greek doctor, pictured right.

 

 

No 14Careers and Ambition Quotes

Be nice to people on your way up because you'll meet 'em on your way down.

- Wilson Mizner (1876–1933) American dramatist, pictured right.

 

 

No 15Careers and Ambition Quotes

No man can climb the ladder of success without first placing his foot on the bottom rung.

- J.C. Penney (1875-1971), American co-founder of the department store, J.C. Penney, pictured right.

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919), the American businessman (pictured right), also says:

You cannot push anyone up the ladder unless he is willing to climb.

 

 

No 16Careers and Ambition Quotes

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.

- Charlotte Whitton (1896–1975) Canadian writer and politician, pictured right.

 

 

No 17 Careers and Ambition Quotes

In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

(called the Peter Principle)

- Laurence Peter pictured right (from his book, The Peter Principle ,1969), .

 

 

No 18Careers and Ambition Quotes

The value of life can be measured by how many times your soul has been deeply stirred.

- Soichiro Honda (1906-91), Japanese co-founder of Honda, pictured right.

 

 

No 19Careers and Ambition Quotes

A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up to it on a cold night.

- Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), American movie star (pictured right).

 

 

No 20Careers and Ambition Quotes

If your boss is a sadist...fire your boss and get a new job.

- Donald Trump (1946- ), American businessman  (pictured right).

 

 

No 21Careers and Ambition Quotes

Ambition is the death of thought.

- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian-born British philosopher (pictured right).

 

Two other comments on ambition are:

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

Ambition is a dream with a V8 engine.

Elvis Presley (1935-1977), American pop star (pictured right)

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

Big results require big ambitions.

- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC), Greek philosopher (pictured right).

 

 

No 22Careers and Ambition Quotes

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher.

- John W. Gardner (1912-2002), American politician and writer (pictured right) -from his book Excellence, 1961.

 

 

No 23Careers and Ambition Quotes

If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (on making the atomic bomb possible).

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American scientist (pictured right).

 

 

No 24Careers and Ambition Quotes

Success depends on people’s enthusiasm, their dependability and their effectiveness, 

- Richard Branson (1950- ), English founder of the British company, Virgin (pictured right).

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

Anita Roddick (1942-2007), founder of the cosmetics retailer, the Body Shop (pictured right) agrees:

To succeed you have to believe in something with such a passion that it becomes a reality.

 

 

No 25Careers and Ambition Quotes

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.

- Warren Buffett (1930- ), American share investor (pictured right).

 

 

No 26Careers and Ambition Quotes

Think of yourself on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

- Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919, Scottish-born American businessman (pictured right).

 

 

No 27Careers and Ambition Quotes

If I had to choose between my job and having great wealth, I'd choose the job.

- Bill Gates (1955-), American co-founder of Microsoft (pictured right).

 

 

No 28Careers and Ambition Quotes

 It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.

- René Descartes (1596-1650), French philosopher (pictured right).

 

 

No 29Careers and Ambition Quotes

Choose the life that is most useful.

- Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher and politician (pictured right).

 

 

No 30Careers and Ambition Quotes

If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third, place,

- Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman philosopher and politician (pictured right).

 

 

No 31

Careers and Ambition QuotesA burning passion coupled with absolute detachment is the key to all success,

- Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi (1869-1948), Indian leader and philosopher (pictured right).

 

 

No 32Careers and Ambition Quotes

The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.

- Homer Simpson, American cartoon character (pictured right).

 

No 33Careers and Ambition Quotes

Excellence is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.

- Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), African American leader (pictured right).

 

 

No 34Careers and Ambition Quotes

You are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities.

- Oprah Winfrey (1954-), African American chat show host (pictured right).

 

 

No 35Careers and Ambition Quotes

I am afraid that the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety

(Elinor in Sense and Sensibility)

- Jane Austen (1775-1817), English novelist (pictured right)

 

 

No 36Careers and Ambition Quotes

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

- Thomas Edison (1847-1931), the American inventor (pictured right).

 

 

No 37Careers and Ambition Quotes

Genius is personality with two pennies of talent.

- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist (pictured right).

 

 

No 38Careers and Ambition Quotes

There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning.

(from the 1917 novel Parnassus on Wheels)

- Christopher Morley (1890-1957), American writer, pictured right. 

 

 

No 39Careers and Ambition Quotes

It is no sin for a man to labour in his vocation.

(Falstaff in Henry IV Part 1)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right.

 

 

No 40Careers and Ambition Quotes

And you wonder, you ask yourself, what the sum total of your life represents. What difference your being there at any time made to anything. 

- Colonel Nicholson (pictured right) - in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957.

 Careers and Ambition Quotes

The French leader, Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) ,pictured right, also comments:

The graveyards are full of indispensable men. 

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