Careers and Ambition Quotes
Top 40 Careers and Ambition
Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
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:
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).
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)
No 2
If you’re not distinct, you’re extinct.,
- Tom Peters (1942-) management writer, pictured right.
Coco Chanel (1883-1971), French
designer and businesswoman (pictured right) puts this another way:
In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different
No 3
Individual competitiveness = what you know x [and] who you know,
Kjell Nordstrom (pictured right above)
and Jonas Ridderstrale, pictured right
below in Funky Business (2000)
No 4
Unhappiness is best described as the difference between our talents and our expectations.
- Edward de Bono (1933- ), creative thinking expert,
pictured right.
No 5
Nobody owes you a career.
- Andrew Grove (1936- ) , American boss of Intel
1987-98, pictured right.
No 6
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.
No 7
Be, know, do.
- American army slogan.
No 8
Character is higher than intellect.
- Ralph Waldo
Emerson (1803-1882) American writer and philosopher, pictured right.
But Max De Pree (pictured right) says in his book,
Leadership is an Art:
Character cannot replace competence
No 9
What makes ambition virtue? The sense of honour.
- William Pitt (1708-78), British prime minister 1766-8, pictured right.
Cicero (106-43 BC), the Roman
philosopher and politician (pictured right), agrees:
Ability without honour is useless
No 10
Life is an opportunity not an obligation.
- Lao Tzu (c604-c531 BC)
Chinese philosopher, pictured right.
The French leader, Napoleon
Bonaparte (1769-1821), pictured right, agrees:
Ability is nothing without opportunity
No 11
Find the work in which you can give of your best.
- J.K. Rowling (1965-), English
writer (pictured right).
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 12
Success is that old ABC - ability, breaks and courage.
- Charles Luckman (1909-99), American architect, pictured right.
No 13
Life is short, the art long.
- Hippocrates (c460-c370 BC), Greek
doctor, pictured right.
No 14
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 15
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.
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 16
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
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 18
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 19
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 20
If your boss is a sadist...fire your boss and get a new job.
- Donald Trump (1946- ), American
businessman (pictured right).
No 21
Ambition is the death of thought.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian-born
British philosopher (pictured right).
Two other comments on ambition are:
Ambition is a dream with a V8
engine.
- Elvis Presley
(1935-1977), American pop star (pictured right)
Big results require big ambitions.
- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC), Greek philosopher (pictured
right).
No 22
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 23
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 24
Success depends on people’s enthusiasm, their dependability and their effectiveness,
- Richard
Branson (1950- ), English founder of the British company, Virgin (pictured right).
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 25
It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin
it.
- Warren Buffett (1930- ), American share
investor (pictured right).
No 26
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 27
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 28
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 29
Choose the life that is most useful.
- Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher and
politician (pictured right).
No 30
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
A burning passion coupled with absolute detachment is the key to all success,
- Mahatma (Mohandas) Gandhi (1869-1948),
Indian leader and philosopher (pictured right).
No 32
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 33
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 34
You are not your circumstances. You are your
possibilities.
- Oprah
Winfrey (1954-), African American chat show host (pictured right).
No 35
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 36
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 37
Genius is personality with two pennies of talent.
- Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist (pictured right).
No 38
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 39
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
40
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.
The French leader, Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) ,pictured right, also comments:
The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
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