Definition of Ambitious

Ambitious

Possessing, or controlled by, ambition; greatly or inordinately desirous of power, honor, office, superiority, or distinction.

Strongly desirous; -- followed by of or the infinitive; as, ambitious to be or to do something.

Springing from, characterized by, or indicating, ambition; showy; aspiring; as, an ambitious style.

Related Definitions:

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Ambitious Quotations

As he was valiant, I honour him. But as he was ambitious, I slew him.
William Shakespeare

The very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
William Shakespeare

Patriotism. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name.
Ambrose Bierce

President Obama instituted the most anti-growth, anti-investment, anti-jobs measures that we have seen in our lifetime. Now he called his agenda ambitious, I call it reckless.
Mitt Romney

I'm hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realize that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure.
George W. Bush

A strength to harm is perilous in the hand of an ambitious head.
Elizabeth I

Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.
R. Buckminster Fuller

Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity.
Robert Louis Stevenson

The tallest Trees are most in the Power of the Winds, and Ambitious Men of the Blasts of Fortune.
William Penn

I incline to an aristocratic republic. This would satisfy the ambitious spirit among our people. We shall learn from the historic mistakes of others in the same way as we learn from our own; for we are a modern nation and wish to be the most modern in the world.
Theodor Herzl

Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.
Gustave Flaubert

Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give place.
Charles Baudelaire

To be free in an age like ours, one must be in a position of authority. That in itself would be enough to make me ambitious.
Hannah Arendt

I'm not that ambitious any more. I just like my privacy. I wish I really wasn't talked about at all.
Barbra Streisand

It takes people a long time to learn the difference between talent and genius, especially ambitious young men and women.
Louisa May Alcott

I am content with nothing, restless and ambitious... and I despise myself for the vanity, which formed half the stimulus to my exertions. Oh would that I were one of those plodding wise fools who having once set their hand to the plough go on nothing doubting.
Thomas Huxley

Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.
Robert Browning

Among all kinds of Writing, there is none in which Authors are more apt to miscarry than in Works of Humour, as there is none in which they are more ambitious to excel.
Joseph Addison

Those who are believed to be most abject and humble are usually most ambitious and envious.
Baruch Spinoza

It's a very smart and heartfelt movie and that's why, I think, we're all drawn to it. We really showed up for this with this collective idea that it was really ambitious, but we felt we all really had something to gain from it.
Robert Downey, Jr.

People say it's not ambitious, but it is actually quite ambitious wanting to help people.
Prince William

To be ambitious of true honor, of the true glory and perfection of our natures, is the very principle and incentive of virtue.
Walter Scott

It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
Arnold J. Toynbee

Being a celebrity or anything else where you're really ambitious, it's really a game to see how successful you can get.
Joe Rogan

I was definitely different from the other kids... I was more ambitious. I knew what I liked and what I wanted, and I worked really hard. I was a very serious kid.
Natalie Portman

I constantly felt (as I suppose many an ambitious girl has felt) a thumping from within unanswered by any beckoning from without.
Anna Julia Cooper

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position.
Jean de la Bruyere

The slave has but one master, the ambitious man has as many as there are persons whose aid may contribute to the advancement of his fortunes.
Jean de la Bruyere

Tim sends me a fairly ambitious workup in notebook form noting the passages we're going to cover and the chronology of the biblical events, and his commentaries on those things he's read and written.
Jerry B. Jenkins

I've always been ambitious to be very good at what I do.
Glenda Jackson

More Ambitious Quotations

Ambitious Translations

ambitious in Dutch is ambitieus, eerzuchtig
ambitious in French is ambitieux
ambitious in German is ambitioniert, ehrgeizig, ehrgeizig
ambitious in Italian is ambizioso
ambitious in Portuguese is ambicioso
ambitious in Spanish is ambicioso

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