Ambition Goals Quotes

Find a purpose to serve, not a lifestyle to live.

There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.

The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.

Why do I do anything?' she says. 'I'm educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I'm so smart I can negate any dream.

Girls can be athletic. Guys can have feelings. Girls can be smart. Guys can be creative. And vice versa. Gender is specific only to your reproductive organs (and sometimes not even to those), not your interest, likes, dislikes, goals, and ambitions.

People will kill you. Over time. They will shave out every last morsel of fun in you with little, harmless sounding phrases that people uses every day, like: 'Be realistic!'" [What It Is (2009)]

Become the leader of your life. Lead yourself to where you want to be. Breathe life back into your ambitions, your desires, your goals, your relationships.

What do you mean I have to wait for someone's approval?  I'm someone.  I approve.  So I give myself permission to move forward with my full support!

It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.

Life's trials will test you, and shape you, but don’t let them change who you are.” ~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive

True friends don't come with conditions.

Sometimes we have to soak ourselves in the tears and fears of the past to water our future gardens.

Without struggle, success has no value.

The difference between greed and ambition is a greedy person desires things he isn't prepared to work for.

From this point forward, you don’t even know how to quit in life.” ~ Aaron Lauritsen, ‘100 Days Drive

Remember how far you’ve come, and you won’t have to rely on a destiny for your future. It will come on your own.

Everyone succumbs to finitude. I suspect I am not the only one who reaches this pluperfect state. Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present. Money, status, all the vanities the preacher of Ecclesiastes described, hold so little interest: a chasing after wind, indeed.

At some point, you just gotta forgive the past, your happiness hinges on it.

Those who achieve the extraordinary are usually the most ordinary because they have nothing to prove to anybody. Be Humble.

Change happens for you the moment you want something more than you fear it.

What you call passion is not a spiritual force, but friction between the soul and the outside world. Where passion dominates, that does not signify the presence of greater desire and ambition, but rather the misdirection of these qualities toward and isolated and false goal, with a consequent tension and sultriness in the atmosphere. Those who direct the maximum force of their desires toward the center, toward true being, toward perfection, seem quieter than the passionate souls because the flame of their fervor cannot always be seen. In argument, for example, they will not shout or wave their arms. But, I assure you, they are nevertheless, burning with subdued fires.

A life fueled by passions is like riding on the back of a dragon.

We weren’t born distrusting and fearing ourselves. That was part of our taming. We were taught to believe that who we are in our natural state is bad and dangerous. They convinced us to be afraid of ourselves. So we do not honor our own bodies, curiosity, hunger, judgment, experience, or ambition. Instead, we lock away our true selves. Women who are best at this disappearing act earn the highest praise: She is so selfless. Can you imagine? The epitome of womanhood is to lose one’s self completely. That is the end goal of every patriarchal culture. Because a very effective way to control women is to convince women to control themselves.

Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.

I've wanted to win at everything, every day, since I was a kid. And time doesn't change a person, it just helps you get a handle on who you are. Even at age 41, I still hate losing--I'm just more gracious about it. I'm also aware that setbacks have an upside; they fuel new dreams.

The question is not whether one can do it better; the question is whether one will do it at all?

An average person with average talent, ambition and education can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals.

When it comes to fighting for your dreams, be a dragon. Breathe fire.

The search for the purpose of life has puzzled people for thousands of years. That’s because we typically begin at the wrong starting point—ourselves. We ask self-centered questions like What do I want to be? What should I do with my life? What are my goals, my ambitions, my dreams for my future? But focusing on ourselves will never reveal our life’s purpose.

Keep your standards even when everyone around you is losing theirs.

I don't want to rot like mangoes at the end of the season, or burnout like the sun at the and of the day. I cannot live like the gardener, the cook and water-carrier, doing the same task everyday of my life... I want to be either somebody or nobody. I don't want to be anybody.

The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.

If life throws you a few bad notes or vibrations, don't let them interrupt or alter your song.

There's more to a person than flesh. Judge others by the sum of their soul and you'll see that beauty is a force of light that radiates from the inside out.

Life is capricious; one moment you're high on a mountain peak with flag in hand, the next you're clinging to an icy ledge by your fingertips.

If you didn't earn something, it's not worth flaunting.

It’s the ‘everyday’ experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.

Stop living within the confines of how others define you! You weren't created to live their life; you were created to live yours - so LIVE it! You can reignite that fire within and bring the passion back into your goals, dreams, ambitions, careers, and relationships by reclaiming control of your own life. Be unapologetically YOU!

Your mind can be your enemy or friend. If you always follow your heart, your mind will feel neglected. If you follow only your mind, your heart will never forgive you. Never ignore your conscience, yet always be conscious of reason. Make your heart and mind friends and you will have peace of mind throughout life's seasons.

Productiveness is your acceptance of morality, your recognition of the fact that you choose to live--that productive work is the process by which man's consciousness controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge and shaping matter to fit one's purpose, of translating an idea into physical form, of remaking the earth in the image of one's values--that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind, and no work is creative if done by a blank who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others--that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind, that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human--that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind's full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay--that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live--that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road--that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up--that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.

Ô, the wine of a woman from heaven is sent, more perfect than all that a man can invent.

To ask, 'How do you do it?' is already starting off on the wrong foot. When reaching for the stars, there does not have to be a 'how' if there is a big enough 'why'.

My ambitions aren't grand. All I have ever wanted is to be there for the two people who mean everything to me. Maybe that's a small goal to others, but it's always felt like enough.

Self pity is the sworn enemy of your ambition. It is the number one killer of your aspirations and goals. Give it a foothold in your life and you’ll chase away every dream, dreamt and every friend, befriended.

When people want to win they will go to desperate extremes. However, anyone that has already won in life has come to the conclusion that there is no game. There is nothing but learning in this life and it is the only thing we take with us to the grave—knowledge. If you only understood that concept then your heart wouldn’t break so bad. Jealousy or revenge wouldn’t be your ambition. Stepping on others to raise yourself up wouldn’t be a goal. Competition would be left on the playing field, and your freedom from what other people think about you would light the pathway out of hell.

Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.

When you find yourself in the thickness of pursuing a goal or dream, stop only to rest. Momentum builds success.

Your trouble, William, is that you have no ambition. You don't see that there is in life only ever one goal.' 'And what is that?' More', George said simply. 'Just more of anything. More of everything.

He was no god, just an artist; and when an artist is a man, he needs a woman to create like a god.

The high road of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.

Momentum builds success.

We love our partners for who they are, not for who they are not.

At times, when God opens a new door, it leads to a place way darker.

The Devil builds a new door—only to shut it when you are halfway through.

If you hold a candle close to you, its flame rises. And if you hold it away from you, its flame shrinks. The same way you hold a candle close to you, keep all your plans, aspirations, projects, and dreams close to you too. Do not share your plans or goals until you complete them, because as you hold your candle away from you — envy, jealousy, and resentment may put out your flame before it grows.

You have to have more than hope to get what you want in life.

Remember this—the journey is part of the dream.  Whatever it is you're chasing, so long as you are actively moving in the right direction, the dream is coming true.

To die famous is the goal of the immortal. To die young is the goal of the healthy. To die memorably is the goal of the survivor.

You will miss a normal life while living a successful life, but not as much as the craving for a successful life while you were living a normal life.

A woman today who has no goal, no purpose, no ambition patterning her days into the future, making her stretch and grow beyond that small score of years in which her body can fill its biological function, is committing a kind of suicide.

The journey of the sun and moon is predictable. But yours, is your ultimate art.

Everyday that I procrastinate, everyday that I sit stagnant in fear, everyday that I fail to better myself, someone else out there with the same goals and dreams as me is doing the exact opposite.

Ambition is a path, not a destination, and it is essentially the same path for everybody. No matter what the goal is, the path leads through Pilgrim’s Progress regions of motivation, hard work, persistence, stubbornness, and resilience under disappointment. Unconsidered, merely indulged, ambition becomes a vice; it can turn an man into a machine that knows nothing but how to run. Considered, it can be something else — pathway to the stars, maybe. I suspect that what makes hedonists so angry when they think about overachievers is that the overachievers, without benefit of drugs or orgies, have more fun.

If you are not working towards something, your life will end with nothing.

So long as the man with ambition is a failure, the world will tell him to let go of his ideal; but when his ambition is realized, the world will praise him for the persistence and the determination that he manifested during his dark hours, and everybody will point to his life as an example for coming generations. This is invariably the rule. Therefore pay no attention to what the world says when you are down. Be determined to get up, to reach the highest goal you have in view, and you will.

Anyone can choose to have success, but only the patient ones will get rewarded by it. Be relentless in chasing your dreams.

Employing your imagination is the first step to the fulfillment of any dream.

Politically, the goal of today’s dominant trend is statism. Philosophically, the goal is the obliteration of reason; psychologically, it is the erosion of ambition.

People are crazy about food, smoking, drinking, girls but not about their dreams.

You can't stop Greatness; you can only try to delay it. And when you try to delay it, it just gets Greater because it gains new strength.

Sometimes our highest goal becomes our big enemy when we move towards our goal blindly without focusing on the path we follow.

Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too.

Ambition looks like you living in a way others won't so you will have a life others can't.

Why settle for a lesser vision? When you are destiny for greatness!

Very often, what is meant to be a stepping stone turns out to be a slab of wet cement that will harden around your foot if you do not take the next step soon enough.

Prayer, faith, and vision, plus real effort too. Blend them together for one potent brew. The magical spell to your dreams coming true.

I work so hard for profits because my dreams are expensive.

You can't be creative without criticism. If your life is without critics then maybe you are painting your life's masterpiece with only a broken brown crayon.

Man transcends himself only via his true nature, not through ambition and artificial goals.

Don't let your life goals fall victim to the allure of comfortable routines.

Integrity is something we show, not proclaim.

Don't live off your past successes or failures, live for the next big pursuit.

Gender is specific only to your reproductive organs (and sometimes not even those), not your interests, likes, dislikes, goals, and ambitions.

An anomaly has his own ambitions. You can try reasoning with him, but that's like using money to bribe a beast.

you think I am going to give up now? I'm so close.

The only real certainty is that if you get to live, you gotta die. Live life now.

Not only should we encourage kids to daydream, but also to jump-in and build those dreams. Dreaming is largely lost among adults drowning in self-imposed realities.

Without ambition, no goal can be met.

Be a team player, not a bandwagon jumper.

So long as we do not know definitely what we want, our forces will be scattered, and so long as our forces are scattered, we will accomplish but little, or fail entirely. When we know what we want, however, and proceed to work for it with all the power and ability that is in us, we may rest assured that we will get it. When we direct the power of thinking, the power of will, the power of mental action, the power of desire, the power of ambition, in fact, all the power we possess on the one thing we want, on the one goal we desire to reach, it is not difficult to understand why success in a greater and greater measure must be realized.

If you pay attention, when you are seeking something, you will move towards your goal. More importantly, however, you will acquire the information that allows your goal itself to transform. A totalitarian never asks, “What if my current ambition is in error?” He treats it, instead, as the Absolute. It becomes his God, for all intents and purposes. It constitutes his highest value. It regulates his emotions and motivational states, and determines his thoughts. All people serve their ambition. In that matter, there are no atheists. There are only people who know, and don’t know, what God they serve.

to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time, and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay - that your work is the process of achieving your values, and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live - that your body is a machine, but your mind is its driver, and you must drive as far as your mind will take you, with achievement as the goal of your road - that the man who has no purpose is a machine that coasts downhill at the mercy of any boulder to crash in the first chance ditch, that the man who stifles his mind is a stalled machine slowly going to rust, that the man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap, and the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up - that your work is the purpose of your life, and you must speed past any killer who assumes the right to stop you, that any value you might find outside your work, any other loyalty or love, can be only travelers you choose to share your journey and must be travelers going on their own power in the same direction.

Most poor people do not really aspire to end poverty; they merely aspire to escape it.

The real achievers are those who, in the dreary pit of sacrifice, still smile up at the goal.

Disturb my sleep but darling don't dare disturb my dreams!

power is the goal of all ambition,

Insights change our desires; the new stories shift our goals, leading us to give up some ambitions and pursue others.

When I walk into [the studio] I am alone, but I am alone with my body, ambition, ideas, passions, needs, memories, goals, prejudices, distractions, fears. These ten items are at the heart of who I am. Whatever I am going to create will be a reflection of how these have shaped my life, and how I've learned to channel my experiences into them. The last two -- distractions and fears -- are the dangerous ones. They're the habitual demons that invade the launch of any project. No one starts a creative endeavor without a certain amount of fear; the key is to learn how to keep free-floating fears from paralyzing you before you've begun. When I feel that sense of dread, I try to make it as specific as possible. Let me tell you my five big fears: 1. People will laugh at me. 2. Someone has done it before. 3. I have nothing to say. 4. I will upset someone I love. 5. Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind. "There are mighty demons, but they're hardly unique to me. You probably share some. If I let them, they'll shut down my impulses ('No, you can't do that') and perhaps turn off the spigots of creativity altogether. So I combat my fears with a staring-down ritual, like a boxer looking his opponent right in the eye before a bout. 1. People will laugh at me? Not the people I respect; they haven't yet, and they're not going to start now.... 2. Someone has done it before? Honey, it's all been done before. Nothing's original. Not Homer or Shakespeare and certainly not you. Get over yourself. 3. I have nothing to say? An irrelevant fear. We all have something to say. 4. I will upset someone I love? A serious worry that is not easily exorcised or stared down because you never know how loved ones will respond to your creation. The best you can do is remind yourself that you're a good person with good intentions. You're trying to create unity, not discord. 5. Once executed, the idea will never be as good as it is in my mind? Toughen up. Leon Battista Alberti, the 15th century architectural theorist, said, 'Errors accumulate in the sketch and compound in the model.' But better an imperfect dome in Florence than cathedrals in the clouds.

Adopt as your ambition the creation of a world in which those who work against you see the light and wake up and succeed, so that the better at which you are aiming can encompass them, too.

I recall how miserable I was, and how one day you brought me to a realization of my miserable state. I was preparing to deliver a eulogy upon the emperor in which I would tell plenty of lies with the object of winning favor with the well-informed by my lying; so my heart was panting with anxiety and seething with feverish, corruptive thoughts. As I passed through a certain district in Milan I noticed a poor beggar, drunk, as I believe, and making merry. I groaned and pointed out to the friends who were with me how many hardships our idiotic enterprises entailed. Goaded by greed, I was dragging my load of unhappiness along, and feeling it all the heavier for being dragged. Yet while all our efforts were directed solely to the attainment of unclouded joy, it appeared that this beggar had already beaten us to the goal, a goal which we would perhaps never reach ourselves. With the help of the few paltry coins he had collected by begging this man was enjoying the temporal happiness for which I strove by so bitter, devious and roundabout a contrivance. His joy was no true joy, to be sure, but what I was seeking in my ambition was a joy far more unreal; and he was undeniably happy while I was full of foreboding; he was carefree, I apprehensive. If anyone had questioned me as to whether I would rather be exhilarated or afraid, I would of course have replied, "Exhilarated"; but if the questioner had pressed me further, asking whether I preferred to be like the beggar, or to be as I was then, I would have chosen to be myself, laden with anxieties and fears. Surely that would have been no right choice, but a perverse one? I could not have preferred my condition to his on the grounds that I was better educated, because that fact was not for me a source of joy but only the means by which I sought to curry favor with human beings: I was not aiming to teach them but only to win their favor.

Do what you have to do... before you do what you want to do.

Knowing the path through the forest doesn't make the trip any less daunting. Knowing the steps to your dreams doesn't make the climb any less of a challenge.

You have to push through every difficulty to achieve the goal.

The obstacles were intended to be a distraction from the goal. You must keep a persistence focus to realise the goal.

I intend to achieve my goals during my lifetime, but if I fail, I will not rest even in the afterlife

Every piece of art has a buyer. Only Time decides when the right buyer will see it.

Tell the world what you intend to do but first show it.

There is no such thing as loving a child too much.

Quit beating yourself up, beat your goals up instead.

Stay strong. Focus on the ultimate goal.

Oghi looked lovingly on his wife’s shallow vanity. She knew exactly what her goals were, and though she believed in them, she failed at nearly everything she set out to do. Yet she brushed off each failure, hardly any worse for the wear. Then quickly found herself a new role model and extoled their virtues ad nauseam. By doing so, she seemed to come to an understanding of the difference between longing and ambition.

We are all beautiful instruments of God. He created many notes in music so that we would not be stuck playing the same song. Be music always. Keep changing the keys, tones, pitch, and volume of each of the songs you create along your journey and play on. Nobody will ever reach ultimate perfection in this lifetime, but trying to achieve it is a full-time job. Start now and don't stop. Make your book of life a musical. Never abandon obligations, but have fun leaving behind a colorful legacy. Never allow anybody to be the composer of your own destiny. Take control of your life, and never allow limitations implanted by society, tell you how your music is supposed to sound — or how your book is supposed to be written.

Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God. It is this spot of grace that issues peace. Psychologists call this spot the Psyche, Theologians call it the Soul, Jung calls it the Seat of the Unconscious, Hindu masters call it Atman, Buddhists call it Dharma, Rilke calls it Inwardness, Sufis call it Qalb, and Jesus calls it the Center of our Love. To know this spot of Inwardness is to know who we are, not by surface markers of identity, not by where we work or what we wear or how we like to be addressed, but by feeling our place in relation to the Infinite and by inhabiting it. This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential. Each of us lives in the midst of this ongoing tension, growing tarnished or covered over, only to be worn back to that incorruptible spot of grace at our core. When the film is worn through, we have moments of enlightenment, moments of wholeness, moments of Satori as the Zen sages term it, moments of clear living when inner meets outer, moments of full integrity of being, moments of complete Oneness. And whether the film is a veil of culture, of memory, of mental or religious training, of trauma or sophistication, the removal of that film and the restoration of that timeless spot of grace is the goal of all therapy and education. Regardless of subject matter, this is the only thing worth teaching: how to uncover that original center and how to live there once it is restored. We call the filming over a deadening of heart, and the process of return, whether brought about through suffering or love, is how we unlearn our way back to God

Obedient to no man, dependent only on weather and season, without a goal before them or a roof above them, owning nothing, open to every whim of fate, the homeless wanderers lead their childlike, brave, shabby existence. They are the sons of Adam, who was driven out of Paradise; the brothers of the animals, of innocence. Out of heaven's hand they accept what is given them from moment to moment: sun, rain, fog, snow, warmth, cold, comfort, and hardship; time does not exist for them and neither does history, or ambition, or that bizarre idol called progress and evolution, in which houseowners believe so desperately. A wayfarer may be delicate or crude, artful or awkward, brave or cowardly—he is always a child at heart, living in the first day of creation, before the beginning of the history of the world, his life always guided by a few simple instincts and needs. He may be intelligent or stupid; he may be deeply aware of the fleeting fragility of all living things, of how pettily and fearfully each living creature carries its bit of warm blood through the glaciers of cosmic space, or he may merely follow the commands of his poor stomach with childlike greed—he is always the opponent, the deadly enemy of the established proprietor, who hates him, despises him, or fears him, because he does not wish to be reminded that all existence is transitory, that life is constantly wilting, that merciless icy death fills the cosmos all around.

The more you think of what is right, the more you tend to make every action in your mind right. The more you think of the goal you have in view, the more life and power you will call into action in working for that goal. The more you think of your ambition, the more power you will give to those faculties that can make your ambitions come true. The more you think of harmony, of health, of success, of happiness, of things that are desirable, of things that are beautiful, of things that have true worth, the more the mind will tend to build all those things in yourself, provided, of course, that all such thinking is subjective.

Ambition is a path, not a destination, and it is essentially the same path for everybody. No matter what the goal is, the path leads through Pilgrim's Progress regions of motivation, hard work, persistence, stubbornness, and resilience under disappointment. Unconsidered, merely indulged, ambition becomes a vice; it can turn a man into a machine that knows nothing but how to run. Considered, it can be something else - pathway to the stars, maybe.

Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race - of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance - of substituting peace for war - freedom for bondage - religion for superstition - the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for.

Tell me something. Do you believe in God?' Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?' 'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?' 'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...' 'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.' Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks: 'There was Manicheanism...' 'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...' Snow pondered for a while: 'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.' I kept on: 'No, it's nothing to do with man. man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...' 'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.' 'If you're going to take what I say literally...' ...Snow asked abruptly: 'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?' 'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.

Freedom is not achieved by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it. Assure yourself of this by expending as much effort on these new ambitions as you did on those elusive goals. Work day and night to obtain a liberated frame of mind. Instead of a rich old man, cultivate the company of a philosopher. Be seen hanging around his door for a change. There’s no shame in the association, and you won’t go away unedified or empty-handed, provided you go with the right attitude. Try, at least - There in no shame in making an honest effort.

There are two types of people in this world- those who pull out of bed each morning at the thought of breakfast and those who are driven by ambition. The former succeed in satisfying hunger pangs and the latter accomplish their life goals.

Your problem is in thinking the sky's the limit. Why set limits?

In every moment of choice, you create a new destiny.

The funny thing about money is that you can't take it with you, so don’t try to.

Many of the boys and men who are regarded as immature by some females are so deemed merely because they do not want to get married someday … or soon.

Ambition is putting a ladder against the sky.

To travel is to breathe sentience into one's ambitions.

Dreams become reality once the dreamer goes beyond imagining and acts them out.

Who told these people with dreams, goals and ambitions they could take time off?

الهدف من الدراسةالتعلم, وليس الحصول على ومعدل عالي! فعندما تجعل غايتك الأولى,ستحصل على الثانية.وعندما تجعل غايتك الثانية,ستصعب عليك الأولى.

Dreams can only be seen with open eyes, what you see while you asleep are nightmares.

In life your expectations and disappointments are directly linked. So too is your heartfulness and your contentedness

Someone who truly loves you will never expect you to give up your goals, dreams or ambitions. They will encourage you, not hold you back.

I often wonder if our greatest ambition is to destroy ourselves.

Beware of those who steer you away from your heart’s true happiness. It would make them happy to see you steer yourself right next to them, sitting with both your hearts bitter.

Be willing for purpose; it pays huge returns on investment. And along the journey, those who dis your willing sacrifice(s) will ponder their own foolishness.

I did all that with my little hatchet.

The highway of grace will get you somewhere a whole lot faster then the freeway of spite.

For the ambitious among us, once we reach our goal we soon formulate another to pursue. This is the hedonic treadmill. We continuously raise the bar for what we want or feel we need in order to be happy - and the hedonic treadmill spins faster with ambition. In other words, the downside to being ambitious is a constant sense of dissatisfaction with our achievements.

It is tempting to quit striving toward a goal when you have neither the time, the resources, the support, the means, nor perhaps the confidence in talent to reach the level of standing you wish to reach. But these are not reasons to quit. Move forward anyway. Try your best. Put what little you do have into accomplishing what you can, because along the way you may attain a portion of what you feel is lacking. And owning a portion of a dream is better than owning no dream at all. Never give up.

Overambitious projects may be objectionable in many fields, but not in literature. Literature remains alive only if we set ourselves immeasurable goals, far beyond all hope of achievement.

I spent my time running towards goals and ambitions. I never wasted a moment to consider the loneliness around me, and to this day, all I see are the things I achieved, not the things I lost. So I can’t relate to you, no matter if I took more time to try.

Ambition is a path, not a destination, and it is essentially the same path for everybody. No matter what the goal is, the path leads through Pilgrim’s Progress regions of motivation, hard work, persistence, stubbornness, and resilience under disappointment. Unconsidered, merely indulged, ambition becomes a vice; it can turn a man into a machine that knows nothing but how to run. Considered, it can be something else—pathway to the stars, maybe.

If you give yourself 30 days to clean to clean your home, it will take you 30 days. But if you give yourself 3 hours, it will take your 3 hours . The same applies to your goals, ambitions and potential.

My goals may seem impossibly far-fetched when really they're not.   Break them down into steps and see how I accomplish great things.   I can easily reach from A to B.  I can manage from B to C. I can then make it from C to D.   And so eventually, I will find my way from A to Z.

Dreams aren't finish lines to be reached at the close of a race. They don't suddenly materialize, fulfilled, where the road ends. The entire journey is included in the dream―all of it from beginning to forevermore. You're on that journey right now; hence, you're living the dream. Enjoy it.

If you become a king, you will be excited for a few days. Then you will become used to it. A new normal will set in. There will be exciting days, depressing days and mostly normal days. The net joy and sorrow will be same as you have now. Understand this illusion and enjoy the present moment.

Villains. Stories are nothing without them. Heroes cannot rise to greatness without them. In the absence of an enemy, our beloved protagonists are left kicking rocks in the Shire or taking tea and biscuits in a mind-numbingly cheery Spare Oom. We love villains because they turn their aches into action, their bruises into battering rams. They push through niceties and against societal restraints to propel the story forward. Unlike our lovable protagonists, villains - for better or worse - stop at literally nothing to achieve their goals. It's why we secretly root for them, why we find ourselves hoping they make their grand escape, and it's why our shoulders sag with equal parts relief and disappointment when they are caught. After all, how can you not give it up to someone who works that damned hard for what they want?... Look into a villain's eyes long enough and we might find our shadow selves, our uncut what-ifs and unchecked ambitions, a blurry line if ever there was one.

Remind yourself daily that there is no way to happiness; rather, happiness is the way. You may have a long list of goals that you believe will provide you with contentment when they’re achieved, yet if you examine your state of happiness in this moment, you’ll notice that the fulfillment of some previous ambitions didn’t create an enduring sense of joy. Desires can produce anxiety, stress, and competitiveness, and you need to recognize those that do. Bring happiness to every encounter in life, instead of expecting external events to produce joy. By staying in harmony on the path of the Tao, all the contentment you could ever dream of will begin to flow into your life—the right people, the means to finance where you’re headed, and the necessary factors will come together. “Stop pushing yourself,” Lao-tzu would say, “and feel gratitude and awe for what is. Your life is controlled by something far bigger and more significant than the petty details of your lofty aspirations.

No one stands at the beginning of a race and then finds himself at the end having never taken a step forward. And if that were to happen—the sweat and struggle avoided—what stories would he have to tell? The goal includes the journey; it's all part of the dream.

The people you spend time with will play the largest part in the ambitions you achieve, not the minutes you saved each day by avoiding them. Be available. Talk to everyone. Become their student, not their teacher. Love’s goal isn’t ever efficiency; it’s presence.

With will one can do wonders.

Do not get lost in the flow of reality.

No one "deserves" success; it is either earned with hard work or lost to the hands of fate.

If you don't learn to be happy with your present, you will never be happy with your future which would be your present one day.

When you see yourself versus the whole world, there's nothing that can stop you from achieving your goals.

People won't respect you until you achieve the respectable goals.

If there is no God, then humankind is not designed, purposed, or planned: there is nothing we are intended to be. All that we hold dear, all of our dreams, ambitions, goals, and accomplishments are pure accidents of atoms. Furthermore, no matter how high we squirm up the greasy pole of existence, no matter how enlightened we become, all of it – the whole cathedral of human accomplishment – is destined to become no more than rubble, buried beneath the debris of the end of the universe: utterly ruined, pitch dark, cold as death, achingly alone.

Oh! my ministering brethren! Much of our praying is but giving God advice! Our praying is discolored with ambition, either for ourselves or for our denomination. Perish the thought! Our goal must be God alone. It is His honor that is sullied, His blessed Son who is ignored, His laws broken, His name profaned, His Book forgotten, His house made a circus of social efforts.

The only thing that kept me from wanting to die was the fact that I could leave my body and be in a body that worked perfectly for a while---better than perfectly, actually---with a set of problems that were not my own." "You couldn't land at the top of a pole, but Mario could." "Exactly. I could save the princess, even when I could barely get out of bed. So, I do want to be rich and famous. I am, as you know, a bottomless pit of ambition and need. But I also want to make something sweet. Something kids like us would have wanted to play to forget their troubles for a while.

Maybe this is the answer - maybe this is how to find true contentment - to live your life within confined horizons. To set modest goals, achievable ambitions. Not all of us can manage it, alas.

Having this, we want that. Owning some, we want more. Standing here, we wish to be there. If it's impossible, we struggle to make it happen. Why are we like this? Why not be content with some, here, and now? Why is enough not enough? Because humans are ambitious creatures not meant to be idle or fruitless. We strive to learn, to grow, to achieve, to amass; therefore, we will never be content.

Think only of what you desire, and expect only what you desire, even when the very contrary seems to be coming into your life. Make it a point to have definite results in mind at all times. Permit no thinking to be aimless. Every aimless thought is time and energy wasted, while every thought that is inspired with a definite aim will help to realize that aim, and if all your thoughts are inspired with a definite aim, the whole power of your mind will be for you and will work with you in realizing what you have in view. That you should succeed is therefore assured, because there is enough power in your mind to realize your ambitions, provided all of that power is used in working for your ambitions.

One simple change – replacing news and mass media with books – can produce dramatic changes in your life. No matter what your ambition in life is, you can find books that will inspire you to work on your goals.

Focus on your goals and ambitions and less on people and things that are counterproductive. A few simple disciplines practiced everyday along with the right mindset will eventually give you the results you desire.

Years ago, I felt that I couldn't die until I became a mangaka. But now, I don't feel that achieving a goal in itself is all that important. When I achieve goals to satisfy my ambitions, only a moment later, that achievement has become simply a part of my normal life. And there are people who are more important to me than any such goals. I think choosing people over goals will make my life better and leave the least regrets.

Every whole person has ambitions, objectives, initiatives, goals. This one particular boy’s goal was to be able to press his lips to every square inch of his own body. His arms to the shoulders and most of the legs beneath the knee were child’s play. After these areas of his body, however, the difficulty increased with the abruptness of a coastal shelf. The boy came to understand that unimaginable challenges lay ahead of him. He was six.

Ambition looks like waking up early; it looks like working after the kids are in bed. Ambition looks like adopting a willingness to admit to the things you don’t know and asking for help or doing the research or becoming your own best mentor. Ambition looks like you living in a way others won’t so you will have a life others can’t.

I am ambitious. I set goals; not because I am ungrateful for what I have, but because I am happy with who I am. I enjoy the experience of rising above my perceived limitations and discovering new levels of my capabilities.

What you love will find a way to draw you in to its space; your purpose will captivate you and stimulate your soul into action. It will not come from a noisy place where fears and worries can reign supreme; it will come from a place of silence, a place of hope, faith, and free of limits. Your purpose becomes your compulsion; your great ambition.

There is always a voyage to our dreams and ambitions; a passage of ascension with many stops and starts along the way. In utilizing all that we have from within we become more skillful through any struggle to get to our place of passion and peace.

My point, though, is that saying thank you every once in a while just isn’t enough when you’re demanding that other people make real sacrifices so you can pursue your goals. It’s not only the fun, showy things like vacations that get the message across. You also have to be willing to do what you can to create the conditions that allow your partner the freedom to focus single-mindedly at times. It’s not easy but it is possible with careful planning, regardless of the scope of your ambition or the demands of your job.

The kinds of purchases surveyed in the news generally sit well beyond necessity. In acquiring them, what we are after is rarely solely or even chiefly just material satisfaction; we are also guided by a deeper, often unconscious desire for some form of psychological transformation. We don't only want to own things; we want to be changed through our ownership of them. Once we examine consumer behaviour with sufficient attention and generosity, it becomes clear that we aren't indelibly materialistic at all. What makes our age distinctive is our ambition to try to accomplish a variety of complex psychological goals via the acquisition of material goods.

Currently, the Library of Congress houses eighteen million books. American publishers add another two hundred thousand titles to this stack each year. This means that at the current publishing rate, ten million new books will be added in the next fifty years. Add together the dusty LOC volumes with the shiny new and forthcoming books, and you get a bookshelf-warping total of twenty-eight million books available for an English reader in the next fifty years! But you can read only 2,600 - because you are a wildly ambitious book devourer. ... For every one book that you choose to read, you must ignore ten thousand other books simply because you don't have the time (or money!).

a happy child grows up to be a happy adult. When I was growing up, spoiling a child meant ruining a child. If something was spoiled, it either went down the drain or was tossed into the rubbish. These days, however, parents pat themselves on the back because their children want for nothing. Wanting is good. If you want for nothing, then you have no goals. And if you have no goals, you have no life, no drive, and no ambitions. Chances are, if today's children don't inherit a lot of money from their parents, they'll grow up and live off the welfare system.

For the fortunate amongst us, the fourth danger is comfort; the temptation to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of an education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not, we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also the most creative of any time in the history of mankind. And everyone here will ultimately be judged - will ultimately judge himself - on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort." Robert F. Kennedy Speeches Day of Affirmation Address, University of Capetown, Capetown, South Africa, June 6, 1966

There are countries in which the communal provision of housing, transport, education and health care is so inferior that inhabitants will naturally seek to escape involvement with the masses by barricading themselves behind solid walls. The desire for high status is never stronger than in situations where 'ordinary' life fails to answer a median need for dignity or comfort. Then there are communities—far fewer in number and typically imbued with a strong (often Protestant) Christian heritage—whose public realms exude respect in their principles and architecture, and whose citizens are therefore under less compulsion to retreat into a private domain. Indeed, we may find that some of our ambitions for personal glory fade when the public spaces and facilities to which we enjoy access are themselves glorious to behold; in such a context, ordinary citizenship may come to seem an adequate goal. In Switzerland's largest city, for instance, the need to own a car in order to avoid sharing a bus or train with strangers loses some of the urgency it has in Los Angeles or London, thanks to Zurich's superlative train network, which is clean, safe, warm and edifying in its punctuality and technical prowess. There is little reason to travel in an automotive cocoon when, for a fare of only a few francs, an efficient, stately tramway will provide transport from point A to point B at a level of comfort an emperor might have envied. One insight to be drawn from Christianity and applied to communal ethics is that, insofar as we can recover a sense of the preciousness of every human being and, even more important, legislate for spaces and manner that embody such a reverence in their makeup, then the notion of the ordinary will shed its darker associations, and, correspondingly, the desires to triumph and to be insulated will weaken, to the psychological benefit of all.

At its core, Stoicism, like the sturdy oak tree, stands firm amidst the torrential downpour of life’s distractions. It teaches us that while we may not command the winds to change, we possess the power to adjust our sails, to guide our minds through the tumultuous sea of life’s happenings.

Not one of our political spokespeople—the same is true of the Arabs since Abdel Nasser’s time—ever speaks with self-respect and dignity of what we are, what we want, what we have done, and where we want to go. In the 1956 Suez War, the French colonial war against Algeria, the Israeli wars of occupation and dispossession, and the campaign against Iraq, a war whose stated purpose was to topple a specific regime but whose real goal was the devastation of the most powerful Arab country. And just as the French, British, Israeli, and American campaign against Gamal Abdel Nasser was designed to bring down a force that openly stated as its ambition the unification of the Arabs into a very powerful independent political force.

Caring for others tends to be the first cut when we review our personal time budget. It does not necessarily fulfill the goals of my ambition; it will not pave the way for my success; it takes away from my own depleted emotional resources. It is an imposition in every way. To some of us, it is an inconvenience from which we unashamedly run. We have become experts in maintaining a grand scope of friendships and amateurs in genuine intimacy and care. Unwittingly, we have sacrificed everything on the altar of self-sufficiency—only to discover that we have sold our souls to isolation.

What elevates one and not another to the level of genius is not only talent and ambition and luck, but a gift for turning everything to the purpose. ... Perhaps that is a common element in the story of genius: beyond talent and ambition and luck, in some degree you have to be forcibly booted out of everyday life and everyday goals. In any case, it was like that with Brahms. The fulfillment of love was denied him so that other things might take wing.

Success breeds ambition, and our recent achievements are now pushing humankind to set itself even more daring goals. Having secured unprecedented levels of prosperity, health and harmony, and given our past record and our current values, humanity’s next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity.

The ability to remain constant, whole and playful, even while working technically, concentrating and upholding urgency, is essential to achieve a state of balance that will allow for this to happen. This has to come to life, and cannot stay just an idea or hope or intention or imitation, or ignored. The guarantee and proof that this balance and power is real is in its actualization. That is, that it manifests in functional reality. As in any intention, whether that be vague or specific, an ambition or desire, a goal or state of being, a question or hope, a curiosity or purpose, there exist natural and unnatural obstacles to its realization.

The Sith were the sworn enemies of the Jedi and the Republic. They sought to wipe us from existence; they sought to rule the galaxy. (...) A Dark Jedi, on the other hand, has much smaller ambitions. He -or she- thinks only of himself. He acts alone. The ultimate goal is not galactic conquest, but personal wealth and importance. Like a common thug or criminal, he revels in cruelty and selfishness. He preys upon the weak and vulnerable, spreading misery and suffering wherever he goes.

As you work with individuals in your organization to develop their vision for the future, it is crucial that you establish specific, measurable goals. These goals will help the individuals realize their ambitions. In addition, you as a mentor have to establish that you are sincerely interested in the problems of the person you are mentoring. By taking action to support the individual, you will prove that you are indeed working in their best interest and always keeping the end in mind.

IN HIS HOURS OF GLOOM—and they were frequent—Thomas Buddenbrook would ask himself what sort of man he really was and what could still justify his seeing himself as something better than any of his simplehearted, plodding, and small-minded fellow citizens. The imaginative élan and cheerful idealism of youth were gone. To play at work, to work at play, to strive, to direct one’s half-serious, half-whimsical ambition toward goals to which one ascribes only symbolic value—that requires a great deal of vigor,

that I always found a very strong resemblance between the rivalries and internal politics in the underworld and normal office politics and rivalries, because human nature is the same everywhere. The people who work in any company have their own individualities and intelligence levels and the only thing common among them is the ambition and greed to reach the top. So even though the company as whole is working towards a goal, the personal ambitions will conflict with each other, creating politics, frustration, jealousy, etc.

The Lean Startup asks people to start measuring their productivity differently. Because startups often accidentally build something nobody wants, it doesn’t matter much if they do it on time and on budget. The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for—as quickly as possible. In other words, the Lean Startup is a new way of looking at the development of innovative new products that emphasizes fast iteration and customer insight, a huge vision, and great ambition, all at the same time.

I have often wondered, Sir, [. . .] to observe so few Instances of Charity among Mankind; for tho' the Goodness of a Man's Heart did not incline him to relieve the Distresses of his Fellow-Creatures, methinks the Desire of Honour should move him to it. What inspires a Man to build fine Houses, to purchase fine Furniture, Pictures, Clothes, and other things at a great Expence, but an Ambition to be respected more than other People? Now would not one great Act of Charity, one Instance of redeeming a poor Family from all the Miseries of Poverty, restoring an unfortunate Tradesman by a Sum of Money to the means of procuring a Livelihood by his Industry, discharging an undone Debtor from his Debts or a Goal, or any such Example of Goodness, create a Man more Honour and Respect than he could acquire by the finest House, Furniture, Pictures or Clothes that were ever beheld? For not only the Object himself who was thus relieved, but all who heard the Name of such a Person must, I imagine, reverence him infinitely more than the Possessor of all those other things: which when we so admire, we rather praise the Builder, the Workman, the Painter, the Laceman, the Taylor, and the rest, by whose Ingenuity they are produced, than the Person who by his Money makes them his own.

Throughout your life, you’ll meet three types of leaders. The first inspires ambition, without results. The second improves results, but ignores the spirit. In Your Best Year Ever, Michael Hyatt proves he is the rare third type of leader—one who both raises our performance and lifts our soul.” —SALLY HOGSHEAD New York Times bestselling author; creator, How to Fascinate®

Grit embodies—but is not the same as—resilience, ambition, and self-control. The University of Pennsylvania psychologist and researcher Angela Duckworth defines it as passion and sustained persistence in trying to achieve a goal over the very long haul, with no particular concern for rewards or recognition along the way. Resilience is about overcoming adversity; ambition, at some level, suggests a desire for wealth, fame, and/or power; self-control can help you resist temptations, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re persistently pursuing a long-term goal.

I die, and yet not dies in me The ardour of my love for Thee, Nor hath Thy Love, my only goal, Assuaged the fever of my soul. To Thee alone my spirit cries; In Thee my whole ambition lies, And still Thy Wealth is far above The poverty of my small love. I turn to Thee in my request, And seek in Thee my final rest; To Thee my loud lament is brought, Thou dwellest in my secret thought. However long my sickness be, This wearisome infirmity, Never to men will I declare The burden Thou has made me bear. To Thee alone is manifest The heavy labour of my breast, Else never kin nor neighbors know The brimming measure of my woe. A fever burns below my heart And ravages my every part; It hath destroyed my strength and stay, And smouldered all my soul away. Guidest Thou not upon the road The rider wearied by his load, Delivering from the steeps of death The traveller as he wandereth? Didst Thou not light a beacon too For them that found the Guidance true But carried not within their hand The faintest glimmer of its brand? O then to me Thy Favour give That, so attended, I may live, And overwhelm with ease from Thee The rigor of my poverty.

Family came first. Always first. We took care of each other and relied on each other. Without the family and without Christian, everything else would be worthless. Fortune came next. It almost seemed shallow to have fortune before future, but we realized that fortune was more than wealth. It was health, goals, and maintaining what we had in the work we wanted to contribute to the world. Our fortune was the things for which we were thankful and the things we had to give. Future came last. Private ambitions, plans for the years down the road, and other goals that could possibly take our attention away from each other and our jobs would be considered only if everything else was strong.

Are you working towards some big goal in life? In the big picture, do you know what you want?" " I thought I did. I thought I had it. But it didn't last. At that time, I thought what I wanted, what my big ambition in life was - wait for it - to be happy. It soon became apparent that happiness shouldn't be a destination in life. It should be part of the journey of your life. Putting everything on hold to achieve the one thing you think will make you happy will actually mean that you're miserable along the way to getting there, and when you get there, you might find that the thing you wanted doesn't make you as happy as you thought it would. Or worse, you've completely forgotten how to be happy.

Obsess to find ways to win. Work ethic separates the great from the good." "Be so focused on your own ambitions that no one can distract you from achieving them." "Have a maniacal work ethic. You want to overprepare so that luck becomes a product of design." "Stay hungry. Dominate each day with ambition unknown to humankind." "Goals motivate you. Bad habits corrode you." "Operate with love. It fuels the desire to become great." "Be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Growth comes at the end of discomfort." "Don't wait for opportunity. Create it. Seize it. Shape it." "Learn every aspect of your craft and substance will follow." "Find your killer instinct. Impose your will. But also realize you are part of a team.

Security ... what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut? Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes? Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences. As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

There are things you should never give up on like your convictions and ambitions but most importantly…you should never give up on you. Keep making those sacrifices, keep running that race, keep advancing beyond your struggles to your eventual goal. You will deeply value your triumphs, if they’re not handed to you. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is worth having or attaining without labor and toil. So when you’re in your darkest hour and the road seems endless, no matter what, never ever give up on you…because only you will see you through. ~Jason Versey

The Devil is rarely a positive card, but it does have a few redeeming qualities. Sometimes it can represent the querent’s ambition and desire for greatness, as well as their desire to move on from one achievement to the next, never stopping or pausing for breath. One thing’s for certain with such a querent: they won’t rest on their laurels! If positively aspected in a reading, this card can indicate a time of great desire and action in the querent’s life, a lust for life, and a willingness to take risks and enjoy life to the fullest, which will serve to further their goals and improve their circumstances. This querent wants to make the most of life while they can and while they have the means and desire to. In a relationship reading, the Devil, if surrounded by positive cards, can sometimes indicate that the physical side of the relationship is wonderful—the sex is great and the mundane circumstances are working very well for the couple. If accompanied by the Lovers or the Four of Wands, it might also indicate the bonds

Set your ambitions, even if you are uncertain about what they should be. The better ambitions have to do with the development of character and ability, rather than status and power. Status you can lose. You carry character with you wherever you go, and it allows you to prevail against adversity. Knowing this, tie a rope to a boulder. Pick up the great stone, heave it in front of you, and pull yourself towards it. Watch and observe while you move forward. Articulate your experience as clearly and carefully to yourself and others as you possibly can. In this manner, you will learn to proceed more effectively and efficiently towards your goal. And, while you are doing this, do not lie. Especially to yourself.

The most common reaction of the human mind to achievement is not satisfaction, but craving for more. Humans are always on the lookout for something better, bigger, tastier. When humankind possesses enormous new powers, and when the threat of famine, plague and war is finally lifted, what will we do with ourselves? What will the scientists, investors, bankers and presidents do all day? Write poetry? Success breeds ambition, and our recent achievements are now pushing humankind to set itself even more daring goals. Having secured unprecedented levels of prosperity, health and harmony, and given our past record and our current values, humanity’s next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity. Having reduced mortality from starvation, disease and violence, we will now aim to overcome old age and even death itself. Having saved people from abject misery, we will now aim to make them positively happy. And having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus.

You were born with your head in the clouds, your future wide open, feeling almost weightless. Almost. Kudoclasm. You had dreams even before you had memories: a cloud of fantasies and ambitions of secret plans and hidden potential, visions of who you are, and what your life will be. They keep your spirits high, floating somewhere above your life, where the world looks faintly hypothetical, almost translucent. But every time you reach for the sky and come away with nothing, you start to wonder what’s holding them up. “Surely it would have happened by now?!” You feel time starting to slip, pulling you back down to earth. even as you tell yourself, don’t look down. You don’t have the luxury of floating through life, because you may not have the time. The future is already rushing toward you, and it’s not as far away as you think. It feels like your life is flashing before your eyes, but it’s actually just the opposite: you’re thinking forward, to everything you still haven’t done, the places you had intended to visit, the life goals you’d eventually get around to, some day in the future. You start dropping your delusions one by one, like tossing ballast overboard. And soon the fog lifts, and everything becomes clear— right until the moment your feet touch the ground. And there it is, “the real world.” As if you’ve finally grown up, steeped in reality, your eyes adjusting to the darkness, seeing the world for what it is. But in truth, you don’t belong there. We dream to survive— no more optional than breathing. Maybe “the real world” is just another fantasy, something heavy to push back against, and launch ourselves still higher. We’re all afraid to let go, of falling into a bottomless future. But maybe we belong in the air, tumbling in the wind. Maybe it’s only when you dive in that you pick up enough speed to shape the flow of reality, and choose your own course, flying not too high, and not too low, but gliding from one to the other in long playful loops. To dream big, and bounce ideas against the world and rise again. Moving so fast, you can’t tell where the dream ends and where the world begins.