Selfish Ambition Quotes

He who is unfit to serve his fellow citizens wants to rule them.

Love of power, operating through greed and through personal ambition, was the cause of all these evils.

He [Martin Van Buren] is an artful, cunning, intriguing, selfish, speculating lawyer, who, by holding lucrative offices for more than half his life, has contrived to amass a princely fortune, and is now seeking the Presidency, principally for sordid gain, and to gratify the most selfish ambition.

Long shall Germany live in shame and humiliation, a prey to inner conflict and alien arrogance, until her people return to the ideals from which they were seduced by selfish ambition, and until true religion and loyalty, unity of purpose and self-denial shall again render them capable of erecting such a building as this.

Many people and companies only have one goal: money, money, and more money. Greed is ok when you let others profit from it, but greed for oneself is bad, it makes you ill.

Stubborn selfishness leads otherwise good people to fight over herds, patches of sand, and strippings of milk. All this results from what the Lord calls coveting "the drop," while neglecting the "more weighty matters." (D&C 117:8) Myopic selfishness magnifies a mess of pottage and makes thirty pieces of silver look like a treasure trove. In our intense acquisitiveness, we forget Him who once said, "What is property unto me?"

I observe that there are two entirely different theories according to which individual men seek to get on in the world. One theory leads a man to pull down everybody around him in order to climb up on them to a higher place. The other leads a man to help everybody around him in order that he may go up with them.

America was built on rugged individualism, and today that has evolved into a culture of narcissism. But God didn't create you to live for you. If you want to follow Jesus, you have to put aside your selfish ambition.

It seems that ambition makes most people wish to be loved rather than to love others.

It is very sad to me that some people are so intent on leaving their mark on the world that they don’t care if that mark is a scar.

At the deepest level, pride is the choice to exclude both God and other people from their rightful place in our hearts. Jesus said the essence of the spiritual life is to love God and to love people. Pride destroys our capacity to love.

The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspires men to be more concerned about making a living than making a life.

We cannot free ourselves from pride and selfish ambition; a divine rescue is absolutely necessary.

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies and cuts through to the essence of the evolutionary spirit.

In the race of men is much greed and envy; but of truth, little.

I think all villains have something in common: they have something that they need or want very, very badly. The stakes are very high and they are not bound by moral codes or being ethical, so they can do anything and will do anything to get what they want.

Our fleshly nature tempts us to put ourselves above others or seek a position or place for ourselves instead of allowing others to have it.

Pride does not look up to God and care about what is right. It looks sideways to man and argues who is right. Pride is manifest in the spirit of contention. Was it not through pride that the devil became the devil? Christ wanted to serve. The devil wanted to rule. Christ wanted to bring men to where He was. The devil wanted to be above men. Christ removed self as the force in His perfect life. It was not my will, but thine be done

There is a canyon of difference between doing your best to glorify God and doing whatever it takes to glorify yourself. The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity. The quest for power is childish.

If we continue to seek learning to serve God and His children better, it is a blessing of great worth. If we begin to seek learning to exalt ourselves alone, it leads to selfishness and pride, which will take us away from eternal life.

The sin which is indulged to the greatest extent, which separates us from God and produces so many spiritual disorders, and which are contagious, is selfishness.

Some of us want the crown before the cross.

Envy is the consuming desire to have everybody else as unsuccessful as you are.

Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification. That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride—to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification, contending for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive

Moved by their selfish desires, people seek after fame and glory. But when they have acquired it, they are already stricken in years. If you hanker after worldly fame and practise not the Way, your labors are wrongfully applied and your energy is wasted. It is like unto burning an incense stick. However much its pleasing odor be admired, the fire that consumes is steadily burning up the stick.