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Ambition, I’ve found, can lead only to failure. I do not read the reviews. No, I am not singing for you.

— Conor Oberst Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

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Ambition

More quotes by Conor Oberst

You mean nothing to no one but that's nobody's fault.

In a coma, you don't dream,
you just hope that someone sits with you.

Letting Off the Happiness (1998)

My head's a carousel of pictures and
The spinning never stops.

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

As they take eye for an eye until no one can see,
we must stumble blindly forward, repeating history.

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

Because the truth is that gossip
is as good as gospel in this town.
You can save face but
you won't ever save your soul.
And that's a fact.

Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (2002)

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