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For the modern psychologist, … industry has remained as the only virtue—with its satellites, ambition and success—a conception of virtue which the Ancients would never have hesitated to relegate to the lowest of men, to pariahs and to slaves.

— Ludwig Klages

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Ambition

More quotes by Ludwig Klages

A man who cannot climb a tree will boast of never having fallen out of one.

Rhythmen und Runen (1944)

The profundity of truth varies with the seeing power of the spirit which seeks it.

The Science of Character (1929)

Everything purposeful is meaningless, and everything meaningful is purposeless.

Rhythmen und Runen (1944)

Many first possess wealth, and are then possessed by it.

Rhythmen und Runen (1944)

Christianity is the war against sleep and dream.

Rhythmen und Runen (1944)

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