Ambrose Bierce Quotes

Ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

Ambrose Bierce

• Friends
• Desire
• Ambition

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Quotes to Explore

• In order to acquire a growing and lasting respect in society, it is a good thing, if you possess great talent, to give, early in your youth, a very hard kick to the right shin of the society that you love. After that, be a snob.

  

  Salvador Dali
  • Society
  • Respect
  • Talent

• The first impression that I liked doing was an impression of Cheri Oteri's Barbara Walters impression on 'SNL.' I found that I could mimic that pretty well, and people got a kick out of that.

  

  Kate McKinnon
  • People
  • Pretty
  • Doing

• A historical romance is the only kind of book where chastity really counts.

  

  Barbara Cartland
  • Book
  • Kind
  • Where

• Only twice have I really had a hard time leaving a character. The first was my character in 'Rome' and then in 'Homeland.'

  

  Zuleikha Robinson
  • Time
  • Character
  • Leaving

• I like men who paint or write or do something creative.

  

  Olga Kurylenko
  • Men
  • Creative
  • Paint

• Banks are concerned the central bank is imposing too many regulations. If the trend continues, we'll swing to heavy regulation. We need to have balanced regulation to encourage the economy.

  

  Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair
  • Need
  • Economy
  • Bank

• Only those ignorant of what poetry means will ask the question: what is it good for?

  

  Orson F. Whitney
  • Good
  • Question
  • Poetry

• Yoghurt cuts sweetness and richness, tempers spice, and makes a dish sing.

  

  Yotam Ottolenghi
  • Sweetness
  • Richness
  • Spice

• In 1993, when I landed in Zimbabwe, there were just 10 psychiatrists in that country of 10 million people. Nine of the 10 were foreigners who spoke no regional language.

  

  Vikram Patel
  • People
  • Country
  • Language

• As an actor, I want to build a career as an actor. It's hard to even get a job sometimes, so as my career builds, I can be more picky than I used to be.

  

  Randy Wayne
  • Job
  • Career
  • Want

• In Iraq, many of my female friends were architects and professionals with a lot of power during the 1980s while all the men were at war in Iran.

  

  Zaha Hadid
  • Men
  • Power
  • Friends

• Sometimes, I'm an ogre. I can be short. I'll walk into the office some days and I've gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, and everybody knows it. I'm a perfectionist. I like to be organized, and I like to get everything done today.

  

  Jack Nicklaus
  • Up
  • Done
  • Today

• I think I have a strange relationship with time. I'm not really aware of that time passing. I don't feel that I'm wasteful with time. But I'm not aware of it passing.

  

  Daniel Day-Lewis
  • Time
  • Think
  • Relationship

• Celebrity life and media culture are probably the most overbearing pop-cultural conditions that we as young people have to deal with, because it forces us to judge ourselves.

  

  Lady Gaga
  • People
  • Life
  • Culture

• I graduated from the University of Whatever.

  

  Dana Snyder
  • University
  • Graduation

• What really matters is what you do with what you have.

  

  H. G. Wells
  • You
  • Really
  • Matters

• I love my job so much, and not everyone can say that and I recognize how lucky that is.

  

  Larisa Oleynik
  • Job
  • Say
  • Lucky

• I was a late bloomer. I was 38 when my first book was out and 43 when my first crime novel was out. I had a story that could only be told as a crime story. I think the genre is good; it deals with the fundamental questions of life and death. The problem is there are too many bad crime stories.

  

  Hakan Nesser
  • Life
  • Good
  • Book

• A man really determines himself by what he does.

  

  Vin Scully
  • Man
  • Really
  • Himself

• As human beings, we all have reasons for our behavior. There may be people who have certain physiological issues that dictate why they make certain choices. On the whole, though, I think we're dictated by our structure, our past, our environment, our culture. So once you understand the patterns that shape a person, how can you not find sympathy?

  

  Forest Whitaker
  • People
  • Why
  • May

• I'm not such a big fan of having a linear answer to things.

  

  Adam Driver
  • Things
  • Answer
  • Big

• I've never been interested in self-promotion and that side of politics; and if that means people judge that you're less prominent than others, that's a choice I've been willing to make.

  

  Douglas Alexander
  • People
  • Judge

• It's insane that people have these Internet identities. It has very little to do with who we really are. As a writer, who I'm friends with, how I spend my time, what I look like, what I wear, what I eat, what kind of music I like - it's totally not important to the work.

  

  Ottessa Moshfegh
  • People
  • Time
  • Work

• Ambition, n. An overmastering desire to be vilified by enemies while living and made ridiculous by friends when dead.

  

  Ambrose Bierce
  • Friends
  • Desire
  • Ambition