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This was human glory—a sad and exhaust-darkened memorial for good citizens to ignore and drunks to piss upon on their way home from the brothels. Here was the omega-point of all ambition.

— Michael Swanwick Jack Faust (1997)

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Ambition

More quotes by Michael Swanwick

What the common man calls Evil, he once told me, is nothing more than the fear of one’s own potential.

Jack Faust (1997)

Everyone dies—the rearrangement of when is a matter of only statistical interest.

Stations of the Tide (1991)

Indeed, what is magic but impossible science?

Stations of the Tide (1991)

Money can always be traced. It leaves a trail of slime behind it wherever it goes.

Stations of the Tide (1991)

This is the price you must pay for knowledge: You must understand and acknowledge its consequences.

Jack Faust (1997)

All Michael Swanwick 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: Michael Swanwick (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.