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There went a young lady with what most people would call a healthy attitude toward self-advancement. Anything for money, short of her body. The trouble with plunging into indefinite pronouns—anything, anywhere, anytime, anyone—is that no one knows how deep the water is until it closes over your head.

— Esther Friesner Sphynxes Wild (1989)

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Ambition

More quotes by Esther Friesner

Like all grandmothers, she wouldn’t mind if the world ended so long as everyone cleaned his plate first.

Sphynxes Wild (1989)

Whoever you are, you’re too weird even for New York, and that’s saying something.

New York by Knight (1986)

Dignity and self-assurance are everything to a woman, especially a naked one.

Harlot's Ruse (1986)

There is a vast difference between innocence and stupidity.

Harlot's Ruse (1986)

Fools are always at the bottom of the food chain.

Elf Defense (1988)

All Esther Friesner quotes →

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Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

The poor, by thinking unceasingly of money, reach the point of losing the spiritual advantages of non-possession, thereby sinking as low as the rich.

Emil Cioran The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.

Jean de La Bruyère Les Caractères (1688)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Esther Friesner (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.